Suppose the Crime Really Is the Same

Imagine two people arrested for stealing $1,200 worth of merchandise from a Pennsylvania store. Neither threatened anyone or carried a weapon. Their criminal histories are comparable, the evidence is equally strong, and both are charged under the same law in the same county.

One is White. The other is Black. Should one remain in jail awaiting trial while the other goes home? Should one receive probation while the other goes to prison? If the circumstances are genuinely comparable, what would justify treating them differently?

The store suffered a loss. Whoever committed the theft should be held accountable, but accountability does not give government unlimited discretion over what happens next.

The Square New Deal begins with government stewardship: The people entrust power to government, and it must be exercised responsibly and accountably. Few powers deserve greater scrutiny than the authority to take away someone’s freedom.

Black Americans represent a much smaller share of the population than White Americans, yet they experience incarceration at substantially higher rates. How much of that difference reflects criminal offending, and how much develops through government decisions?

The question isn't whether America should punish people who break the law, but whether it applies the same standard when it does.

The Numbers Are Real. But What Do They Prove?

At midyear 2024, America’s local jails held approximately 659,000 people. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 45% were White and 38% were Black. More White Americans were jailed in total, but the numbers look different when population size is considered.

For every 100,000 White residents, 149 were held in local jails. For every 100,000 Black residents, 566 were held. That is approximately 3.8 times the White rate.

However, 68% of people in local jails had not been convicted of the offense for which they were being held. Some awaited trial; others were held for different legal reasons. A jail population therefore reflects decisions about detention as well as convictions. Jail statistics should not be confused with the population serving sentences in state and federal prisons.

These figures establish a serious disparity. They cannot tell us how much comes from criminal conduct, prior records, policing, or court decisions. To find out, we have to follow an individual case.

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You Cannot Explain Punishment Without Examining Crime

There is an uncomfortable fact we cannot avoid: Differences in criminal offending contribute to differences in incarceration. However, treating arrests as a complete record of crime would be misleading.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that White Americans accounted for 65.5% of arrests in 2024 and Black Americans for 30.5%. Those are shares of arrests, not rates per person or counts of unique offenders. Arrests also depend on which offenses are reported, where police investigate, and whether suspects are identified. An arrest is not a conviction.

Federal victimization surveys and other research show racial differences in serious violent offending and victimization. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has examined how concentrated poverty, segregation, and exposure to violence intersect with crime and justice. None of this establishes that race itself causes criminal behavior, and violent-crime findings cannot simply be applied to shoplifting.

Enforcement matters too. A 2020 American Civil Liberties Union report found that Black Americans were 3.64 times as likely as White Americans to be arrested for marijuana possession, despite comparable reported rates of use. The data cover 2010–2018, and changing laws limit what they tell us about today. They illustrate why arrests alone cannot establish differences in underlying conduct. We must evaluate our retail-theft defendants on evidence of their own conduct, not on the arrest statistics of an entire population.

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Let’s Follow $1,200 Through the Justice System

$1,200 is a real loss to a business, especially one trying to meet payroll and rent. Pennsylvania law also treats that amount seriously: Retail theft involving more than $1,000 is a third-degree felony, even for a first offense. Prison isn't automatic, but the consequences extend far beyond repaying the stolen merchandise. A felony charge can threaten a person’s livelihood before sentencing.

Our defendants face comparable allegations and evidence, but real cases differ. Sentencing can properly reflect prior convictions, the seriousness of the offense, and other legally relevant circumstances. Courts must consider those factors before making racial comparisons.

The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing publishes information about offenses, criminal histories, and sentencing outcomes, but those records chiefly describe cases reaching sentencing, not every report, arrest, dismissed charge, or plea negotiation. Focusing only on the final sentence would miss how a defendant got there. We also need to examine the earlier decisions.

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The Road to Prison Can Divide Before a Judge Speaks

A prosecutor decides which supported charges to pursue and what plea offers to make. One of our hypothetical defendants could receive an offer to plead to a reduced charge while the other faces the original felony. Even before sentencing, the available consequences could diverge.

Sometimes different decisions are justified. Yet where the relevant circumstances are comparable, unequal treatment needs an explanation.

In a 2014 study published in the Journal of Political Economy, researchers M. Marit Rehavi and Sonja Starr followed federal cases from arrest through sentencing. Black defendants received sentences nearly 10% longer than comparable White defendants arrested for the same crimes, after accounting for available case characteristics. Much of the remaining difference was tied to prosecutors’ initial charging decisions, particularly charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Black arrestees had about 1.75 times the adjusted odds of facing such charges, which can require judges to impose at least a specified minimum prison term.

The study did not examine Pennsylvania shoplifting or prove individual prosecutors' motives. It did establish why an examination of punishment cannot begin with the judge’s final decision. A difference in charges can become a difference in time behind bars.

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A Person Can Lose Their Freedom Before Being Found Guilty

An arrest is an accusation, not a conviction, yet keeping someone in jail while awaiting trial can change that person’s life long before a judge or jury determines guilt.

Now suppose one defendant goes home while awaiting trial and the other remains in jail. Neither has been convicted, yet one can keep working, pay rent, and help prepare a defense; the other may miss paychecks, lose housing, or struggle to communicate with an attorney.

Courts have legitimate obligations to protect the public and ensure defendants appear for proceedings. Pennsylvania’s bail rules require consideration of individual circumstances, including the charge, criminal history, community ties, and financial resources. The question is whether comparable risks lead to comparable decisions.

In a 2018 study of Philadelphia and Miami bail decisions, researchers David Arnold, Will Dobbie, and Crystal Yang found evidence of racial bias against Black defendants. They used the differing release tendencies of nearly randomly assigned judges to examine pretrial risk. A separate 2018 study found that detention before trial increased the likelihood of conviction, largely through guilty pleas, and reduced subsequent formal employment.

Neither study establishes what would happen to our two retail-theft defendants. Both show why pre-conviction confinement is a serious exercise of government power. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, a missed week of work can mean falling behind on rent or losing a job. The economic price can come before a verdict.

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Same Crime. Same History. Same Punishment?

Here is the crucial test. When researchers compare defendants while accounting for factors that should affect sentencing, do racial differences disappear?

In a 2023 study published in Crime & Delinquency, Rory Monaghan and Kaitlyn Konefal examined 717,163 Pennsylvania sentencing cases from 2006–2016. They accounted for several factors, including criminal history, sentencing guidelines, offense categories, age, sex, and judicial district.

Even after those adjustments, Black defendants had approximately 33% higher odds of incarceration than White defendants. Among defendants sent to jail or prison, the study’s principal adjusted comparison found sentences approximately 4.4% longer for Black defendants. Higher odds are not the same as a 33% higher probability. The researchers also found mixed results on the relationship between presentence investigation reports and sentence disparities.

This is Pennsylvania evidence, but it is not a matched study of $1,200 retail thefts. The cases cover multiple offenses and an earlier period. Statistical adjustments cannot account for every unmeasured fact, and the results do not establish discriminatory intent in every case.

However, federal research points in a similar direction. The U.S. Sentencing Commission examined sentences from fiscal years 2017–2021 and found that Black male defendants were 23.4% less likely than comparable White male defendants to receive probation, after adjusting for available characteristics. Among those incarcerated, sentences were, on average, 4.7% longer. The Commission found that much of the overall difference came down to the decision between probation and incarceration, although probation accounted for only 6% of sentences in that federal sample.

Think about that decision outside a courtroom. One person returns home under supervision and keeps working. Another loses months of freedom and income. Those outcomes may both be lawful in different cases, but the government should be able to justify why they differ.

We cannot say our hypothetical defendants would receive different sentences, or calculate exactly what share of America’s total incarceration gap is caused by unequal treatment. We can say that substantial differences remained in large studies after researchers accounted for many relevant circumstances. General crime rates do not erase those findings.

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The Square New Deal Test: Can Government Demonstrate Equal Justice?

We began with two people accused of the same theft. The evidence does not tell us how their hypothetical cases would end. It does tell us why a fair criminal justice system must be examined at more than one point: policing, charging, detention, and sentencing can each influence who loses freedom and for how long.

The Square New Deal calls this government stewardship. The authority to punish wrongdoing comes with an obligation to explain how that authority is exercised. The Fourteenth Amendment requires states to provide equal protection and due process. A statistical disparity alone is not proof of a constitutional violation, but government should not wait for a lawsuit before examining patterns it cannot adequately explain.

Lawmakers should require information that lets citizens compare genuinely similar cases, with appropriate privacy safeguards: charges, criminal histories, detention decisions, plea outcomes, and sentences. When differences remain after officials consider relevant factors, they should investigate their causes and correct unjustified practices. Congress oversees federal law and oversight; state legislatures oversee much of the justice system people encounter.

Citizen stewardship also demands consistency. A retailer who loses $1,200 deserves accountability, and communities have a right to safety. Defendants have a right to fair treatment. Protecting victims and respecting constitutional limits are both obligations of the same government.

The Square New Deal does not ask us to excuse crime because of race or poverty. It asks us to insist that punishment rest on conduct, evidence, and lawful circumstances rather than assumptions about a person’s identity.

A crime does not become less serious because the person who committed it is White, or more serious because the person is Black. When government takes a citizen’s freedom, it should be prepared to explain why. A government should not merely tell its citizens that justice is fair. It should be able to show them.

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The Coffman Chronicle is built on a simple belief: Government belongs to the people, and the people have a responsibility to hold it accountable. That includes demanding fair treatment under the law, protecting constitutional rights, and questioning how power is exercised in our name.

If you believe independent, evidence-based reporting matters, please consider becoming a paid subscriber if you can afford it. If you cannot, a free subscription, a thoughtful comment, or sharing this article helps keep these conversations alive and brings more citizens into them.

We don’t have to agree on everything to demand accountability from those who govern us. We just have to remember whose republic this is.

We Are the Firewall.

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Sources

American Civil Liberties Union. A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform. April 16, 2020.

Arnold, David, Will Dobbie, and Crystal S. Yang. “Racial Bias in Bail Decisions.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133, no. 4 (2018): 1885–1932.

Dobbie, Will, Jacob Goldin, and Crystal S. Yang. “The Effects of Pretrial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges.” American Economic Review 108, no. 2 (2018): 201–240.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Reported Crimes in the Nation, 2024: Quick Stats. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2025.

Monaghan, Rory, and Kaitlyn Konefal. “Presentence Investigation Reports and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing.” Crime & Delinquency 69, no. 12 (2023): 2460–2483.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2023.

National Archives. “14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868).” National Archives and Records Administration.

Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. “Data Dashboards (2015–2024).” Pennsylvania State University.

Pennsylvania General Assembly. “Retail Theft, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3929.” Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, Title 18.

Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. “Rule 523: Release Criteria.” Pennsylvania Code, Title 234.

Rehavi, M. Marit, and Sonja B. Starr. “Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Sentences.” Journal of Political Economy 122, no. 6 (2014): 1320–1354.

Tapp, Susannah N., and Emilie J. Coen. Criminal Victimization, 2024. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 2025.

United States Sentencing Commission. 2023 Demographic Differences in Federal Sentencing. Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, November 2023.

Zeng, Zhen. Jail Inmates in 2024: Statistical Tables. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 2026.

The General Who Warned America

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the American people from the Oval Office for the final time. Three days later, John F. Kennedy would become president. Before leaving, the five-star general who had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II wanted to warn Americans.

Two world wars and the Cold War had transformed the United States into a military and industrial power unlike anything it had maintained during peacetime. Factories, laboratories, military installations, and private corporations had become essential to national defense. America could no longer afford to rebuild its military capacity from scratch whenever another threat emerged.

Eisenhower understood why the system existed. He wasn’t calling for America to abandon its defenses or stop investing in technology. Few presidents had greater experience with the relationship between military strategy, industrial production, and national security. But he knew that institutions created to protect a country could accumulate enough economic and political influence to begin shaping the decisions they were supposed to serve.

He named that relationship the military-industrial complex. In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Those words became the defining legacy of his speech, repeated by generations concerned about defense spending, corporate influence, and permanent war. But the warning came from a president who had helped oversee the very defense system he was describing. He was asking Americans to distinguish the strength needed to defend a republic from the influence that strength could accumulate over the republic itself.

Yet Eisenhower delivered another warning in the same speech. He described how scientific research had become increasingly dependent on government funding, large institutions, and specialized expertise. Then he warned that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite.

Eisenhower was not suspicious of science simply because it was advancing. He feared what could happen when those controlling essential technology, specialized knowledge, and enormous financial resources acquired disproportionate influence over public decisions. The danger didn’t require a conspiracy. It could develop through ordinary relationships among government officials, businesses, military planners, and scientific experts, each pursuing seemingly reasonable goals.

Over time, the nation might become dependent on institutions it could no longer easily challenge, regulate, or replace. Who ultimately makes decisions when national security, corporate interests, scientific expertise, and government authority become inseparable?

Sixty-five years later, Americans are confronting that question again. Now, the technology at the center of the conversation is artificial intelligence (AI).

The Warning We Remember. The Warning We Forgot.

Most Americans who recognize the phrase military-industrial complex associate it with defense contractors, enormous Pentagon budgets, and politicians protecting military spending. However, reducing Eisenhower’s argument to companies making money from war misses the deeper concern.

Military commanders needed equipment, manufacturers needed contracts, workers needed jobs, and members of Congress cared about their districts’ economies. Each could pursue a legitimate objective while contributing to an arrangement that became difficult to challenge. That is why Eisenhower warned against unwarranted influence, whether deliberately sought or accumulated through the system's ordinary workings.

Consider a major weapons program embedded in several communities. Factories hire workers, suppliers build businesses, and local governments depend on the resulting activity. Questioning whether the military still needs that system becomes a debate about jobs, tax revenue, corporate profits, and political consequences. Congress may face pressure to preserve it even when a less expensive or more effective alternative deserves consideration.

That does not prove the program is unnecessary or its supporters dishonest. It shows why government needs enough independence to judge military requirements on their merits. If economic dependence makes canceling an unnecessary program politically impossible, the problem extends beyond the defense budget. The public is entitled to ask whether a program exists because it serves a continuing need or because ending it would impose costs that elected officials would rather avoid explaining. Both questions deserve an answer, but only one can establish a national-security requirement.

Eisenhower’s scientific warning described a relationship that ran in both directions. Government funding could shape which discoveries researchers pursued. Meanwhile, increasingly specialized technology could make officials dependent on a small group of experts to explain what was possible, necessary, or affordable.

Scientific knowledge is essential to competent government. Engineers can explain systems, commanders can describe operational requirements, and executives can explain costs. But technical expertise and democratic authority serve different purposes. Their expertise alone does not give them the authority to decide what risks citizens should accept, how much taxpayers should spend, or which protections remain in place. Government must hear competing technical assessments rather than rely on the same vendor to define a problem, propose a solution, and judge whether it worked.

The danger grows when agencies have few alternatives to their suppliers. A contractor may operate systems government employees cannot replace or control information necessary to evaluate performance. Even without improper conduct, that dependence can shape which choices officials consider realistic.

Here Eisenhower’s warnings converge. One concerns economic influence over national-security decisions; the other, concentrated technological expertise influencing public policy. When private institutions develop essential technology, receive government funding, and supply critical defense capabilities, both concerns can operate at once.

Government needs private innovation and capable partners, but partnership must not mean surrendering the ability to make independent decisions. Washington has decided that America cannot afford to fall behind in developing artificial intelligence.

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Washington Declares an AI Race

Washington has chosen a word for artificial intelligence: race. It is not simply another industry, but a competition the United States believes it cannot afford to lose. When national security and economic dominance are at stake, speed begins influencing nearly every policy decision.

On January 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. Six months later, the White House released America’s AI Action Plan, identifying more than ninety proposed federal actions involving innovation, infrastructure, and international leadership. The administration argued that unnecessary restrictions could slow American companies while strategic competitors, particularly China, advanced.

There are legitimate reasons to prioritize AI. It has potential applications in medicine, manufacturing, research, cybersecurity, transportation, and defense. Military planners see opportunities to analyze information and improve logistics and operations. Allowing a strategic competitor to gain overwhelming advantages in technologies essential to national security could create risks of its own. Every delay is not necessarily evidence of government failure. Security testing, competitive bidding, and clear contracting rules can prevent larger failures later. A national strategy should explain which requirements slow progress without producing public value and which safeguards keep rapid progress from becoming an expensive mistake.

Eisenhower would have understood that argument. His concern wasn’t whether America should advance technologically, but whether urgency might substitute for independent judgment. A military requirement still needs examination, a contract needs justification, and an essential supplier needs accountability. National security explains why government may invest, not automatically how much it should spend or what protections it should require.

The administration’s agenda reaches beyond software to data centers, electricity infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and American technology exports. It also emphasizes reducing regulatory barriers and consulting industry about restrictions companies consider unnecessary. Industry expertise can identify obsolete requirements, but companies also have financial interests in the outcome. Government must distinguish needless obstacles from safeguards that protect the public. When industry asks government to move faster, the question is not simply whether faster approval would benefit the companies involved. It is whether the public receives a better result and whether oversight can keep pace with what is being built.

The administration has sought greater national consistency in AI regulation. Its March 2026 legislative framework proposed federal approaches to child safety, workforce development, and community protections while seeking to displace certain state restrictions. Consistency can help businesses operating across state lines, but citizens still need to know whether federal rules preserve protections states currently provide.

The administration has not ignored technological dependence. A June 2026 national-security memorandum set objectives for reliability, accountability, and government control of essential AI systems. In October, the administration established a task force to examine AI-related risks and coordinate federal policy. Those measures deserve examination, including whether their protections work in practice rather than only on paper.

This question extends beyond President Trump. Government’s relationship with technology companies predates this administration and will outlast it. America needs rules durable enough to survive changes in political leadership, corporate ownership, and technical capabilities. AI may demand urgency, but urgency does not relieve Congress of its responsibility to provide oversight.

Once Washington identifies an industry as essential to national security, public money flows to companies that can supply it. That is where Eisenhower’s warning becomes more than history.

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Follow the Contracts

On July 14, 2025, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office announced agreements with Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s xAI. Each carried a $200 million ceiling, for a combined potential value of $800 million, to accelerate military adoption of advanced AI across national-security missions. A contract ceiling is neither money already spent nor a guarantee that a company will receive the full amount, but these agreements establish formal purchasing relationships with developers of some of the world’s most advanced AI systems.

The Defense Department wants to explore technology that can perform multistep tasks, analyze information, support logistics, and improve efficiency. Successful applications could save money and strengthen defense. Working with several suppliers may also preserve competition rather than placing every requirement in one company’s hands.

However, competition at the outset does not guarantee independence later. Who controls the data the software processes? Can government specialists test its performance? What happens when a supplier changes the technology, raises prices, or discontinues service? Can another contractor take over without forcing an agency to rebuild its operations?

Traditional military procurement has faced similar problems. Weapons can require proprietary software, replacement parts, or maintenance available only from the manufacturer. AI adds complications because government may purchase an ongoing service rather than equipment it can run independently. Updates can change the system, and the supplier may retain control of critical infrastructure. That makes the right to inspect performance, export data, document changes, and continue operations after a disagreement central to national security, not fine print left entirely to purchasing officers.

In April 2026, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that agencies struggled with AI acquisition costs, technical expertise, and data rights. The Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, along with the General Services Administration, were not systematically collecting lessons learned from their AI acquisitions, limiting their ability to improve contracts and avoid repeated mistakes.

One example involved the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials using an AI-based damage assessment system said they could not share certain outputs with federal and state partners because they had not obtained the necessary rights when the agreement was awarded. Technology intended to support disaster response came with contractual limits on sharing information among public agencies. No conspiracy was required; a procurement omission created a practical barrier.

The GAO findings do not prove that the Pentagon’s four agreements have those weaknesses or that any named company did anything wrong. They show identifiable procurement problems affecting costs, performance, competition, and public control. All four agencies agreed to GAO’s recommendations to improve their practices.

Companies have legitimate reasons to develop technology, compete for contracts, and earn profits. Government must obtain useful capabilities at defensible prices while retaining the ability to assess and replace suppliers. A government contract can buy access to extraordinary technology, but it cannot replace the government’s responsibility to control its use. That raises a difficult question: What happens when government becomes a customer that cannot realistically leave?

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When the Government Becomes the Customer That Cannot Leave

Buying technology from a company differs from relying on that company to fulfill an essential public responsibility. If an agency can replace an unsatisfactory supplier, it retains leverage. If switching would disrupt operations, the contractor gains bargaining power beyond what its original agreement might suggest.

Imagine an agency adopting an AI system, training employees on it, integrating it with other software, and building procedures around its capabilities. After several years, switching providers might require extensive retraining, transferring sensitive information, conducting security reviews, and rebuilding other systems. The purchase may have been sensible, but leaving becomes expensive.

A company need not act improperly to benefit from this position. It may provide excellent service at a fair price. Nevertheless, responsible government must anticipate changes in prices, technology, corporate ownership, and the public’s needs rather than relying entirely on goodwill.

A real-world example involves satellite communications, not AI. In May 2026, Reuters reported a disagreement between the Pentagon and Elon Musk’s SpaceX over pricing for Starlink connections used in military drone operations. According to the report, SpaceX argued that a higher-priced service category applied, and Pentagon officials ultimately agreed to the increased fees. Musk and a Pentagon spokesperson disputed that account, while the Pentagon emphasized its pursuit of competition in military satellite communications.

The contested account does not establish wrongdoing. SpaceX has provided communications capabilities with genuine national-security value. But the dispute illustrates why access, pricing, service continuity, and alternative suppliers become operational issues when essential activities rely on a private network.

AI can create comparable dependence on proprietary models, computing infrastructure, specialized employees, and continuously updated software. Even when an agency owns its data, it may not be able to move an established system elsewhere without serious disruption. A contractual right to terminate is not the same as a functioning replacement. Government may need staff who understand its systems well enough to supervise vendors, validate claims, and manage a transition. That capacity costs money, but so can losing the ability to make an independent choice when a contract comes up for renewal.

The administration’s June 2026 memorandum addresses this risk by directing agencies to use multiple vendors and to protect against private entities disabling, degrading, or materially altering mission-dependent AI systems without federal knowledge and approval. Those are meaningful objectives. Enforcing them requires enforceable agreements, technical expertise within government, independent testing, and credible alternatives.

Congress can investigate whether those protections operate in practice, including data rights, contractor competition, and continuity plans. Some information must remain classified, but that requires protected oversight, not no oversight. The relevant test is whether government can exercise its contractual rights under difficult conditions, not just whether a document says those rights exist.

Government does not have to own every satellite, computer, or AI model it uses. Private partners can deliver capabilities agencies could not efficiently develop alone. The point is to ensure the government retains practical control, not merely formal authority. And as the industry grows, that question reaches households far from Washington or Silicon Valley.

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The Bill Still Comes to the Kitchen Table

The family opening its electric bill may never have heard of Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex or know which companies have Pentagon contracts. They understand what happens when keeping the lights on costs more. Their household budget shrinks, no matter how impressive the technology being developed elsewhere.

AI depends on data centers packed with specialized computers that consume electricity, generate heat, and require supporting infrastructure. In June 2026, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projected that data centers could use approximately 11.8% of America’s electricity by 2030, with scenarios ranging from 9.5 to 15.3%. Those forecasts include activities beyond AI and are not guaranteed outcomes, but they illustrate the scale of the challenge.

Meeting demand can require transmission lines, substations, transformers, and new generating capacity. Utilities generally recover approved costs through customers’ rates. If infrastructure is built mainly to serve an enormous new industrial customer, who should pay: the company creating the demand or the households and businesses already connected? An ordinary household cannot negotiate a special utility contract or relocate when a major industrial project changes the local energy outlook. Regulators must consider customers without a seat at the corporate negotiating table.

Electricity prices reflect fuel costs, weather, aging infrastructure, and many other factors. Not every increase can be blamed on AI; large customers can sometimes help finance improvements that benefit everyone. But when equipment is built around demand that fails to materialize, the public should know who remains responsible for the cost.

There are benefits. Data-center construction employs electricians, engineers, construction crews, and equipment manufacturers. Communities may receive tax revenue and infrastructure improvements. But temporary construction jobs differ from permanent staffing, and promises of investment do not automatically justify public subsidies or infrastructure commitments.

In March 2026, seven major technology companies signed the Trump administration’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, committing to secure electricity supplies and cover data center-related infrastructure expenses rather than passing those costs to households. The principle is sensible: companies creating extraordinary demand should take responsibility for meeting it.

However, a voluntary pledge is not the same as an enforceable utility agreement. Regulators need to examine costs, set rates, and decide who pays if a project uses less power than expected or shuts down before its infrastructure is paid for. The public needs a way to verify that promises are kept. That means looking beyond a company’s press release to rate structures, infrastructure commitments, and financial guarantees approved by utility regulators. A project may bring genuine benefits while still requiring safeguards against cost shifting.

Virginia offers one approach. Its State Corporation Commission-approved provisions require certain large electricity customers, including data centers, to accept long-term service obligations and minimum payments. Beginning in 2027, new qualifying large-load customers generally face a 14-year service commitment. Covered customers must pay minimum charges based on 85% of contracted transmission and distribution demand and 60% of generation demand, even when usage falls short, subject to specified exemptions. The goal is to limit costs shifted to everyone else.

Communities must also consider water use, land use, public services, and environmental conditions. A town should be able to welcome investment without surrendering its authority to question the consequences. Federal policy, state utility regulation, and local planning each have a role in assigning responsibilities fairly.

This is government and corporate stewardship in practice. Businesses can innovate and earn profits while accepting responsibility for burdens they create. Government can encourage investment without transferring avoidable costs to citizens. The Square New Deal asks whether benefits are real, costs are fairly assigned, and affected people have meaningful protection. Americans should not have to learn that those obligations were neglected by opening their next electric bill.

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Congress Cannot Outsource Its Responsibility

The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse because controlling public money is one way the people control government. That authority does not belong exclusively to the president, military leaders, or companies selling public institutions technology. It belongs to the legislative branch, whose members must answer to voters for spending decisions.

Article I authorizes Congress to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and establish rules for the armed forces. Federal money cannot be drawn from the Treasury without appropriations. The president is commander in chief and directs executive agencies under the law, but Congress retains constitutional authority over military commitments and spending.

AI does not change that. Congress need not design models or negotiate every contract. It must establish legal boundaries for government purchases and uses of AI, appropriate funds, and examine whether safeguards work. Technical complexity and national-security urgency do not suspend those duties. Congressional committees can call agency officials and contractors to account, review records under appropriate security procedures, and use appropriations and legislation to correct weaknesses. That work is less dramatic than presidential announcements, but it builds durable oversight.

Lawmakers can require safeguards for government data, independent testing, contingency plans if contractors fail, and evidence that agencies can switch suppliers. They can demand explanations of costs, service interruptions, and procurement decisions rather than accepting assurances that everything is under control.

The GAO’s April 2026 findings offer an immediate starting point. Congress can require the agencies identified to document corrections, measure progress, and explain whether new legislation is necessary. Oversight should identify weaknesses before they become expensive failures.

Industry experts belong in that process. Engineers and executives understand capabilities government officials need to evaluate. But expertise does not confer democratic authority. Companies can explain what their systems do, what they cost, and what they require; Congress must determine the obligations that accompany public use.

Those obligations should survive changes in presidents, executives, and technologies. States, communities, and regulators also retain responsibilities within their authority, particularly when federal ambitions create local costs. Congress should not substitute executive promises or corporate assurances for durable rules.

The Square New Deal brings together government, corporate, and citizen stewardship. Private companies may own AI. The American people must own the rules. Businesses that take public money must meet enforceable obligations, and elected institutions must protect citizens from risks and costs they should not bear.

Congress has tools to do its part. Whether it uses them effectively is a question the people writing contracts or developing technology alone cannot answer. Eisenhower understood who ultimately had to ask.

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Eisenhower Was Warning the Citizens, Too

One final part of Eisenhower’s farewell address is worth remembering. After describing concentrated military and industrial power, he placed responsibility for holding it accountable on an alert, knowledgeable citizenry. Democratic institutions could protect the nation only if the people stayed engaged enough to hold them to their purposes.

That is demanding. Most Americans lack the time or expertise to evaluate weapons systems, AI models, or federal contracts. They have jobs, families, and bills. However, citizenship does not require knowing how to build a technology. It requires knowing who governs its use and insisting that those officials answer for their decisions.

Americans can ask whether agencies received what taxpayers bought, whether contractors met their obligations, and what happens when essential systems fail. Communities can demand explanations of infrastructure commitments and local costs. They do not need an engineering degree. They need representatives willing to provide meaningful answers. Citizen stewardship is not a demand that households personally audit federal code or classified contracts. It is an insistence that elected institutions do the examining for them and make enough of the results understandable for the public to judge their performance.

National security sometimes requires secrecy, and businesses deserve appropriate protection for legitimate proprietary information. Neither should become a blanket excuse for avoiding accountability. Congress can inspect classified programs through established procedures, conduct independent reviews, and report responsibly to the public.

That expectation must be consistent across political parties. Americans cannot demand scrutiny of a contract awarded by a president they oppose and abandon it when their preferred administration makes the same decision. Constitutional responsibility does not change depending on who benefits.

Near the end of his farewell address, Eisenhower spoke about the civic responsibilities he would carry after leaving office. The general who had commanded Allied armies was returning to private life, but his obligation to the country did not end with his authority to govern.

Sixty-five years later, the machinery created to defend a free society increasingly includes AI, private infrastructure, and corporations whose capabilities may become essential to government. The technology has changed, but the constitutional responsibility has not.

Eisenhower’s warning was never just about the powerful. It was about whether the rest of us would remain powerful enough to hold them accountable.

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Eisenhower understood that democracy depends on an informed and engaged citizenry. That responsibility hasn’t changed, even as the technology and institutions shaping our lives have grown more complicated. The Coffman Chronicle examines those institutions, follows the public money, and reminds Americans that government answers to the people, not the other way around.

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Sources

Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Farewell Address.” National Archives and Records Administration. January 17, 1961.

Jeans, David. “Pentagon Spars with SpaceX over Starlink Price Hike during Iran War.” Reuters, May 26, 2026.

Rozen, Courtney. “Trump AI Task Force Leaders to Meet on Thursday, Vice Chair Says.” Reuters, October 8, 2026.

Smith, Sarah Josephine, Alex Hubbard, Alexander Newkirk, Mohan Ganeshalingam, Billie Holecek, Dale A. Sartor, Michael Mills, and Arman Shehabi. United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, June 2026.

United States. Constitution of the United States. 1787. National Archives and Records Administration.

United States Department of Defense, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. “CDAO Announces Partnerships with Frontier AI Companies to Address National Security Mission Areas.” July 14, 2025.

United States Government Accountability Office. Artificial Intelligence Acquisitions: Agencies Should Collect and Apply Lessons Learned to Improve Future Procurements. GAO-26-107859. April 13, 2026.

Virginia State Corporation Commission. “In Biennial Review Ruling, SCC Creates New Class for Large-Scale Energy Users.” November 25, 2025.

White House. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Advances Energy Affordability with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.” March 4, 2026.

White House. National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-11: Artificial Intelligence in the National Security Enterprise. June 5, 2026.

White House. “President Donald J. Trump Unveils National AI Legislative Framework.” March 20, 2026.

White House. Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. Executive Order 14179. January 23, 2025.

White House. “White House Unveils America’s AI Action Plan.” July 23, 2025.

The House That Should Have Been Safe

A home is supposed to be the place where a family is safest. It is where children go to sleep, where arguments should end without tragedy, and where the ordinary routines of living together continue from one day to the next. In Erie, Pennsylvania, on October 9, 2026, that expectation ended in violence.

Authorities say a 45-year-old man killed eight people at his home before taking his own life. Seven of those killed were his relatives; among the victims were two young children and a pregnant woman. Investigators had not established a motive. Nothing reported so far lets us say whether this tragedy came with warnings someone could reasonably have recognized.

That uncertainty belongs at the center of this story, because Erie is not the only community confronting this kind of loss. Even as homicide rates have fallen across many American cities, family mass killings have risen sharply compared with an exceptionally low 2025. That comparison is alarming, but it does not prove an unprecedented or lasting trend.

Numbers cannot tell us what happened behind every closed door. They can, however, force us to ask what we know about danger inside families, what signs sometimes appear before a killing, and whether the systems meant to protect people are equipped to respond before another family becomes a statistic.

The Numbers Tell Two Different Stories

For much of America, the latest homicide statistics are encouraging. According to the Council on Criminal Justice, homicides fell 18% during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025 across 30 cities reporting data. Compared with the first half of 2022, the homicide rate in those cities had fallen by 51%.

Another set of numbers tells a troubling story, however. According to figures from the Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University’s mass-killing database, just six family mass killings occurred nationwide in 2025, the lowest annual number in at least two decades. By September 19, 2026, at least 17 had already occurred. The underlying database defines a mass killing as an incident in which four or more people are killed within 24 hours, excluding the perpetrator. These figures concern killings involving families. Some end in suicide. Others do not.

Before calling this an unprecedented surge, we need perspective. In 2022, the same database recorded 17 family mass killings, ten of which ended in murder-suicide. The unusually low 2025 total magnifies the apparent jump in 2026. The latest figures are disturbing, but they do not establish that family mass killings have reached a level America has never experienced before. These crimes remain relatively rare, and annual numbers can fluctuate substantially. One year’s increase does not establish a lasting trend.

There is another figure worth examining. In the Council on Criminal Justice’s midyear report, the average reported domestic violence rate increased 8% in the eight cities providing comparable data, while homicides declined in the separate 30-city sample. Domestic violence in those eight cities nevertheless remained 7% below its 2019 level. Reported domestic violence is not the same as family mass murder, and these figures do not establish a connection between the trends. They remind us that progress against homicide does not necessarily mean every form of violence inside the home is improving at the same pace.

If America is reducing homicide overall, why are families still experiencing violence on this scale? To answer that, we have to examine what happens before the killings.

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What Happens Before a Family Is Killed?

These killings do not follow a single script. Some emerge from relationships marked by threats, controlling behavior, or previous abuse. Others occur without a documented history that would have alerted police, neighbors, or relatives. Looking for patterns is necessary, but pretending those patterns can reliably identify a future killer is dangerous.

Research on intimate-partner homicide has identified previous domestic violence, threats to kill, access to firearms, and separation from a controlling partner as serious risk factors. A landmark study led by Jacquelyn Campbell found that leaving or becoming estranged from a controlling abuser could be a period of heightened danger. The same study identified an abuser’s access to a firearm as a significant risk factor for intimate-partner homicide. A credible threat becomes especially concerning when the person making it has access to a lethal weapon. That research concerns intimate-partner homicide, not family mass killings specifically, and it cannot predict which household will experience such an attack, nor does it mean leaving causes the violence or that someone should remain in an abusive home. Responsibility belongs to the person choosing violence.

In some cases, the danger extends beyond the relationship itself. Children, parents, and other relatives may become victims alongside an intended partner. A child has no control over an adult’s jealousy, anger, or determination to dominate another person. Yet that child may still become a victim. The danger can reach people who never took part in the conflict, leaving entire generations of a family exposed to one person’s decision to use violence.

Economic pressure, unemployment, divorce, substance misuse, and personal crises may also appear in these cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies numerous factors associated with intimate-partner violence, but risk factors are not verdicts. Millions of Americans experience hardship, depression, or divorce without harming anyone. Ordinary human struggles are not evidence that someone is capable of murder.

Even established risk factors cannot tell us who will commit a mass killing, and research on intimate-partner homicide cannot explain every family mass murder. The more useful question is what happens when dangerous behavior becomes visible. Does someone recognize it? Does anyone know where to turn? And when a credible warning reaches authorities, what happens next?

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The Warning Signs We See, and the Ones We Don’t.

After a family is killed, the same question often follows: Were there warning signs? It is reasonable to ask, but hindsight can turn it into an accusation. An argument, a troubling remark, or a call to police may look unmistakable after a tragedy. The people who witnessed those moments did not know what would come next.

In September 2026, researchers Jason R. Silva and Adam Lankford examined 483 U.S. mass shootings from 2000 through 2023. They distinguished “leakage”—revealing violent intentions to someone other than an intended victim—from threats made directly to a potential victim. In 61% of family mass shootings, they found no documented disclosure of violent intentions through either route. That does not prove no warnings existed. It tells us what the available records showed. A direct threat may be known only to the person targeted; leakage may reach friends, coworkers, or classmates. Who knows about a danger affects whether anyone can seek help.

Across all the mass-shooting categories studied, only 54% of incidents with documented leakage or threats were reported before the attack. The researchers suggested that people may hesitate because they cannot tell whether a person making a threat will act on it. A statement can sound like anger at the time and a warning only after someone dies.

Among completed family mass shootings in which warnings of violent intent reached criminal justice authorities, 98% received a documented formal response. That is not 98% of all warning signs, and a recorded response does not establish that it was timely, adequate, or capable of preventing the killing. The study examined completed attacks, not incidents that intervention may have prevented.

We cannot blame victims or relatives for failing to predict murder from ambiguous encounters, but when specific, credible threats are reported, government has a duty to assess the danger seriously and act within the law. What can authorities actually do once they recognize a threat?

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Knowing Someone Is Dangerous Is Not the Same as Being Able to Stop Them

Recognizing danger is one thing. Preventing violence is another. An officer may respond to repeated domestic disturbances, a court may hear allegations of threats, or a relative may report frightening behavior. Authorities must determine what the evidence supports, what the law permits, and what could reduce the danger. Suspicion alone does not justify every possible intervention.

The Lethality Assessment Program, developed in Maryland, allows responding officers to screen for serious domestic violence risks and connect survivors with advocates for safety planning. A National Institute of Justice evaluation found increased help-seeking and safety planning, along with reductions in the frequency and severity of violence survivors experienced. However, it could not reliably predict exactly who would commit lethal violence. It assesses danger, but it is not a crystal ball.

Courts have other options. Domestic violence protection orders can restrict contact, and qualifying orders or convictions can prohibit firearm possession. Some states also allow extreme risk protection orders, which can temporarily restrict firearms when legal standards for dangerousness are met. Rules differ, and enforcement is essential. A restriction offers little practical protection if prohibited firearms are never surrendered.

Even a properly issued order may leave a threatened parent needing transportation, emergency housing, childcare, legal help, and somewhere safe to take the children. A protection order cannot provide those things on its own. A remedy that exists on paper may offer little safety when practical help is unavailable. Leaving may also mean losing wages, finding accessible transportation, moving children between schools, or trying to keep an address confidential. These are not side issues for the person making a safety plan.

None of these measures guarantees the prevention of a family mass killing. Much of the research concerns intimate-partner violence more generally, but it identifies tools capable of reducing certain dangers. Are those tools working together when a family needs them, or does responsibility get lost between institutions?

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When the Warning Reaches Government, Who Owns the Response?

A family facing credible threats should not have to understand government’s organizational chart to find protection, yet a response can involve local police, prosecutors, courts, state agencies, and shelters. Each has responsibilities, but no single institution necessarily controls the entire process. Poor coordination can leave a family navigating multiple offices while trying to escape one dangerous situation.

The Violence Against Women Act supports coordinated responses among law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and advocates. In a 2024 initiative, the Department of Justice identified problems that undermine protection: orders that went unserved, delays in sharing information with firearm background-check systems, and difficulties arranging storage for surrendered firearms. These are not abstract bureaucratic concerns. An order that is not served or enforced can leave someone exposed to the danger it was meant to address. Coordination has to mean more than a meeting between agencies. Someone must confirm who will serve the order, who will record the restriction, and who will follow up if the person subject to it does not comply.

Accountability still requires examining what happened, not assuming government failed whenever violence occurred. A formal response is not necessarily an effective intervention. Was it appropriate to the information available? Did authorities have the legal tools and resources to do more? Did the family obtain meaningful protection?

This is where government stewardship becomes measurable. Congress can establish federal protections, appropriate funding, and oversee federal programs. States write and administer many domestic violence laws. Local authorities carry out much of the immediate response, while community organizations provide practical help. Each level should be accountable for its responsibilities and for coordinating to fulfill them.

The Square New Deal does not demand that government predict every act of violence. It asks whether protective orders are served, credible threats are assessed, safeguards are enforced, and people seeking protection are actually helped. Government must respond to danger without letting suspicion replace due process.

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Protection Cannot Mean Abandoning Constitutional Rights

Government must protect people from credible threats, but that does not give officials unlimited power over someone they believe might become dangerous. The Constitution protects the family seeking safety and the individual accused of threatening them. Ignoring either responsibility is a failure of stewardship.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court addressed part of this question in United States v. Rahimi. The Court ruled that someone found by a court to pose a credible threat to another person’s physical safety may be temporarily prohibited from possessing firearms without violating the Second Amendment. The ruling upheld a federal restriction involving a qualifying domestic violence protective order. It did not authorize firearm confiscation merely because someone seemed angry, troubled, or unpopular.

Other interventions have different requirements. Extreme risk protection orders generally require judicial findings and procedures to challenge restrictions, although state rules vary. Emergency action may precede a full hearing, but meaningful legal review remains essential. Involuntary psychiatric commitment is a separate, serious deprivation of liberty. The Supreme Court has required clear and convincing evidence for indefinite civil commitment, not ordinary suspicion.

These safeguards exist because government can make mistakes, accusations can be false, and extraordinary powers can be misused. At the same time, constitutional protections do not require authorities to ignore credible evidence of serious danger.

The Square New Deal asks government to exercise legitimate authority responsibly, not expand it every time a frightening event occurs. Families need enforceable laws, testable evidence, and decisions that can be challenged. The goal is neither unchecked power nor government paralysis. Due process shows that government intervention rests on evidence and lawful authority rather than fear alone. It protects the rights of every citizen.

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Citizen Stewardship Does Not Mean Becoming a Detective

Constitutional limits on government do not mean the rest of us have no responsibility. Friends, relatives, teachers, and neighbors sometimes hear threats or notice fear at home, but citizen stewardship does not mean investigating a household, confronting a suspected abuser, or deciding who might become a killer. It means taking credible concerns seriously without pretending to know what we cannot.

When someone confides that they are being threatened or controlled, a useful response begins with listening. Ask what help they want, respect their decisions, and connect them with trained advocates. A ride, childcare, help securing important documents, or assistance finding shelter can make a difference. Insisting someone leave immediately or confronting the person they fear can make a dangerous situation worse. A survivor may be weighing risks an outsider cannot see, including threats against children or relatives. Respecting that judgment helps without taking control.

If violence appears imminent, emergency services may be necessary. Otherwise, confidential advice from a domestic violence advocate can help someone consider safer options. Not every family mass killing comes with recognizable warnings. Citizens cannot be held responsible for knowing the unknowable.

Government stewardship begins where citizen goodwill ends. People seeking protection need competent assistance, not a maze of referrals and unanswered calls. Communities can notice, listen, and support. Public institutions must be ready when that support is not enough.

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A Family Shouldn’t Have to Become a Statistic Before We Ask These Questions

We began with a house in Erie, Pennsylvania, because a home is where people expect to be safe. After a family is killed, the country learns the number of victims, the location, and whatever details investigators can establish. Questions about prevention should not begin only after the names appear in a homicide report.

America’s falling homicide rate represents genuine progress, and we should acknowledge it. Nor should we turn one year’s resurgence in family mass killings into proof of a long-term epidemic. The numbers give us a reason to investigate. They cannot, by themselves, tell us whether the next family faces a danger someone might recognize before it becomes deadly.

Sometimes there are no warnings anyone could reasonably have acted upon. Other times, threats, police reports, protective orders, or requests for help exist. In those cases, accountability means asking what information was available, what the law permitted, what action was taken, and whether the systems designed to protect people actually worked. A completed form is not the same as a family reaching safety.

Citizen stewardship asks us to take credible danger seriously and support people seeking protection. Government stewardship demands public institutions that can provide lawful, meaningful assistance when needed. We cannot promise that every act of violence can be prevented, but when the warning signs of danger are visible before a family is destroyed, we owe those families more than an explanation of what went wrong afterward.

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Sources

Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979). Supreme Court Opinion.

Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University. “Mass Killing Database.” Northeastern University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Berger, Eric. “‘Way Too Many Guns Around’: The Common Theme in US Family Killings.” The Guardian, September 19, 2026.

Campbell, Jacquelyn C., et al. “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results from a Multisite Case Control Study.” American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 7 (2003): 1089–97.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Risk and Protective Factors.” February 8, 2024.

Lopez, Ernesto, and Bobby Boxerman. “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2026 Update.” Council on Criminal Justice, July 2026.

National Domestic Violence Hotline. “Plan for Safety.” Accessed October 11, 2026.

National Institute of Justice. “How Effective Are Lethality Assessment Programs for Addressing Intimate Partner Violence?.” June 10, 2018.

Shaffrey, Ted. “Pennsylvania Shooter Who Killed 8 Was Family’s Patriarch, Father of Toddler Killed Says.” Associated Press, October 11, 2026.

Silva, Jason R., and Adam Lankford. “A Comprehensive Assessment of Leakage, Threats, Public Reporting, and Responses to Reports among Public, Family, and Felony Mass Shootings.” American Journal of Criminal Justice, September 14, 2026.

United States Department of Justice. “Readout of OVW Director Rosemarie Hidalgo’s Trip to Unveil Comprehensive Initiatives to Address the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Firearms.” August 1, 2024.

United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women. “Resource Guide for Addressing the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Firearms.” Updated June 10, 2026.

United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). Supreme Court Opinion.

By Wednesday, he had perfect attendance and no measurable output.

He was an orange cat with one white paw and the unhurried confidence of someone who had never received an urgent email. Each morning, he appeared outside the glass doors before opening, slipped in behind a patron, and settled beneath the newspaper rack.

At first, Head Librarian Marian Bell carried him back outside. Walter returned through the book drop.

Marian carried him out again. Walter waited beside a woman returning three mystery novels and walked back in as though they had arrived together.

“We cannot have a cat in the library,” Marian told Youth Librarian Tasha Green.

“Of course not,” Tasha said, placing a folded towel beside the radiator. The towel was not officially for Walter. It was simply warm, cat-sized, and in exactly the spot he preferred to sleep.

For several days, the staff insisted Walter wasn't the library’s cat. He was merely a cat who spent all day in the library, greeted patrons, occupied library furniture, and became visibly annoyed when the copier made noise. There was an important administrative distinction.

The children named him Walter because Tasha said he looked like a Walter. Nobody could explain what that meant, but everyone agreed.

The Employee Nobody Hired

Walter’s first regular visitor was a third grader named Eli, who hated reading aloud. During the after-school program, Eli whispered every sentence and stopped whenever he stumbled over a word. Walter climbed into the chair beside him, turned twice, and went to sleep.

Eli tried another sentence. Walter did not correct him. By Friday, Eli had read Walter most of a book about volcanoes. Walter slept through it all, which Tasha described as “a highly supportive listening style.”

Then Mr. Alvarez began coming every afternoon. His wife had died the previous winter. Before Walter, he came only on Thursdays to read the local newspaper. Now he sat in the armchair beside the radiator every day. Walter usually slept on his shoes.

“He likes me,” Mr. Alvarez said.

“He likes the heat vent beneath your chair,” Marian said.

Mr. Alvarez nodded. “We have an understanding.”

Other people began staying longer too.

Parents lingered after story hour. Teenagers came for the Wi-Fi and stayed to report Walter’s movements. A retired teacher brushed him every Friday. Two men who had argued for years about the editorial page began speaking again after Walter sat directly on the article they were disputing.

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A Fourteen-Percent Problem

The electronic door counter showed visits up fourteen percent. This would have been uncomplicated good news if the annual budget review had not been approaching.

The library board wanted an explanation for every increase and justification for every expense.

Board Chairman Gordon Price studied the report through the lower half of his glasses. “Visits are up fourteen percent,” he said. “What new service did we introduce?”

Marian looked at Tasha. Tasha looked beneath the conference table, where Walter was attempting to pull a loose thread from Gordon’s briefcase.

“We acquired a cat,” Marian said.

Gordon lowered the report. “With what funds?”

“We did not acquire him financially.”

“Was he donated?”

“Not in the traditional sense.”

Gordon looked under the table. Walter stopped pulling the thread and stared back. “Is he a volunteer?”

“He has not completed the paperwork.”

“Has he had a background check?”

“He has no background we can confirm.”

The board requested more information.

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Walter’s Official Record

The next morning, Marian created a document titled RESIDENT ANIMAL SERVICE ASSESSMENT. Before Marian could print it, Tasha changed it to WALTER’S ATTENDANCE RECORD.

For three weeks, the staff recorded Walter’s activities. Hours present: 173. Books shelved: zero. Meetings interrupted: four. Children comforted: nine. Newspaper disputes prevented by occupying the newspaper: two. Patrons greeted: difficult to determine. Unauthorized naps: all of them.

One entry read: “Sat inside empty cardboard box from 10:14 until closing. Purpose unclear.”

Gordon returned the report with a yellow note. HOW DO WE KNOW THESE PATRONS WOULD NOT HAVE VISITED ANYWAY?

The librarians discussed creating a control group. That would require selecting patrons who were not allowed to see Walter, which everyone agreed would be difficult to enforce and unnecessarily cruel.

Tasha proposed a feline engagement survey. Marian rejected it after reading the first question: On a scale of one to five, how strongly do you agree that Walter acknowledges your contributions?

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What the Numbers Couldn’t Hold

The question behind Gordon’s note remained. What, exactly, was the library supposed to prove? The circulation numbers mattered, as did program attendance, computer use, and help with tax forms or job applications. Public money deserved accounting. Marian believed that as strongly as Gordon did.

Some things, however, were harder to count. No column tracked the man using a library computer because his unemployment application existed only online. No easy unit measured the woman staying warm because her apartment heat had failed. No circulation statistic captured Eli trying “constellation” three times instead of giving up.

The library was not valuable because nothing there could be measured. It was valuable because measurement was supposed to help the town understand what the institution accomplished, not become an excuse to ignore everything that did not fit neatly into a box.

The board scheduled an official visit. On inspection day, Walter did nothing useful. He did not greet the board. He did not demonstrate increased circulation. He did not even wake up when Gordon entered.

Walter slept beneath a table while Marian showed the board the computer stations, children’s room, meeting space, and shelves of forms patrons needed help finding because more government services had moved online.

She explained that the library served as an office for people without offices, a classroom for people without quiet homes, and a place to get help without first proving they could afford it. That did not make every program necessary forever. Public institutions still had to show their work. Programs that failed should change. Waste should be found.

However, the test could not simply be whether every chair, hour, employee, or orange cat produced a unit of output. The test was whether the institution had enough capacity to do the work the community depended on it to do.

Gordon took notes.

Near the radiator, Eli was reading aloud from a book about the solar system. He reached the word “constellation,” stopped, and tried again.

Walter opened one eye. Eli sounded it out slowly. Walter climbed into the chair beside him and settled against his leg.

Across the room, Mr. Alvarez lowered his newspaper. “That’s right,” he told Eli. “Constellation.”

Eli repeated it. A teenager at the next table looked up from her laptop. The retired teacher smiled. Tasha added a small mark to Walter’s attendance sheet.

Gordon watched the room. “What service,” he asked Marian, “would you say the cat is providing right now?”

Marian looked at Eli, Mr. Alvarez, and the people who had begun talking to one another because an orange cat kept giving them a reason to stay. “Retention,” she said.

The board did not put Walter on the payroll. It did something more sensible. It approved a policy allowing a resident animal when consistent with public health, accessibility, and community use. The Friends of the Library paid for Walter’s vaccinations, neutering, food, and regular veterinary care. The town designated a cat-free reading room for people with allergies, service animals, or an entirely reasonable dislike of cats.

The town kept paying for what only the town could reliably provide: librarians, books, computers, heat, lights, and a public place where nobody had to buy anything to stay. The community handled Walter. That arrangement suited Walter, who had never expressed interest in working for the government.

At the next budget meeting, Gordon asked whether the library was still tracking his performance. Marian handed him the latest attendance record.

Walter had been present every day except one, when the library closed because of ice. His measurable output remained zero. Visits were still up fourteen percent.

Gordon studied the page, then wrote something in the margin. After the meeting, Tasha leaned over to read it. KEEP TRACKING ATTENDANCE. STOP TRYING TO MAKE THE CAT SHELVE BOOKS.

Walter spent the afternoon asleep in the cardboard box. His purpose remained unclear.

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I went to Stover today looking for stories. I found honey, pony rides, and a fellow who makes whiskey.

I’d say I was on the right street.

Today was the Rock Island Festival in downtown Stover, Missouri. I took my microphone along and spent some time getting acquainted with the folks behind the booths.

We talked about honey and bee products, goat milk and tallow, animals and pony rides, and some Missouri-made spirits. That covers a fair amount of ground for a Saturday afternoon.

And I managed to do it without getting on a pony.

That’s one of my favorite things about these festivals. You can stop to look at something somebody made and end up learning a little about the life they’ve built around it. The conversation gets interesting when you start asking questions.

There’s work behind those tables. Somebody tended the bees, cared for the animals, made the products, and loaded everything up to bring it to town.

I like meeting those people. And I like bringing you along.

The video above gives you a few of today’s conversations. We came home with more footage and pictures, too, so there will be more from Stover to share.

Thank you to the folks who welcomed me and took a few minutes to visit.

Next week in Coffman’s Landing

Back in our fictional town at the Lake of the Ozarks, we’re spending some time around the businesses that keep the place going.

T.C. Redford needs a part from Warren Pike’s hardware store. Cecil Boone is back in his barbershop, where the opinions are as available as the haircuts. There’s a loose muffler that needs another hand, a stop at Mercer’s Corner Market, and four motorcycles arriving with plenty for everybody to talk about.

Five little visits to a town where a simple errand can take longer than you planned.

Hear the whole week tonight

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Become a paid member of The Coffman Chronicle and you’ll get each coming week’s Five Minutes in America stories every Saturday, before their weekday release.

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What’s the place in your hometown where a five-minute stop turns into a half-hour conversation? Hit reply and tell me about it.

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You may remember this arrival from Mitchell and Dudley’s side of the street. This time, stand beside T.C. as a familiar afternoon unfolds.

There’s a customer waiting, a doorway that needs clearing, and …

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T.C., Blue, Roy, and Glenn have stopped for lunch before riding down Main Street. Pull up a seat with them. There’s an old coffee table with a story in its worn finish, and Earl would be happy to recommend the potato salad.

June would prefer he quit giving it away.

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Then Blue arrives.

Before they can head into town, there’s a muffler to secure, a borrowed wrench to put away, and a little friendly commentary about whether Blue needs a haircut or just a better hat.

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Between the repaired town sign, motorcycle mufflers, and the amount of hair Blue has to offer, there’s plenty to discuss. The customer in the chair would like to hear all of it. Cecil would like him to hold his head straight.

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We’ve followed Mitchell and Dudley through these streets. This week, come along with T.C. and see what the same town looks like from a different pair of shoes.

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Before the SEA LIFE aquarium at the Mall of America opened Monday morning, an unusual group of visitors arrived for a private tour. About two dozen rescue kittens from the Twin Cities-based Bitty Kitty Brigade spent nearly two hours exploring the aquarium. They scampered through a 300-foot underwater tunnel, watched sea turtles swim past and stared through the glass at stingrays and sharks much larger than anything they had encountered before.

One kitten named Turkey Leg stood on its hind legs and pawed at the glass while colorful clownfish darted nearby. Others, including Funnel Cake, Apple Fries, Lottie Dottie, and Mouth Trap, raced around the exhibits or settled beneath the aquarium’s blue glow for a nap.

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The visit was adorable, but it also served a purpose. The Bitty Kitty Brigade finds foster homes for orphaned newborn kittens, and new sights and experiences help the animals become more comfortable around people and unfamiliar surroundings. That socialization can make it easier for them to adjust when they are eventually adopted.

This was the rescue organization’s sixth annual aquarium field trip. The group currently oversees about 1,000 kittens, so the outing also offered a chance to draw attention to its work and the animals still waiting for homes.

The aquarium has hosted rescue puppies on similar visits, but, wisely, it invites the puppies and kittens on different days.

For one quiet morning, the sharks stayed behind the glass, the kittens explored a much bigger world, and a rescue organization gave potential adopters another reason to notice the small lives in its care. That sounds like a field trip worth taking.

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The Check on the Kitchen Table

Imagine a household with two adults sitting at the kitchen table trying to make the numbers work. The mortgage is due. Groceries cost more than they used to. The electric bill is sitting beside a stack of unopened mail, and somewhere in that pile is a medical bill neither person is particularly eager to look at.

Now imagine the federal government makes that household two different offers.

The first is simple: We are going to send you $10,000. No restrictions. The money goes into your account, and you decide whether it pays the mortgage, catches up the credit cards, replaces the transmission, covers groceries, or sits in savings.

The second offer looks different: We will cover $10,000 of your healthcare costs that otherwise would have come out of your household budget. The money never lands in your checking account. It goes toward insurance, doctors, hospitals, prescriptions, or some other part of the healthcare system. You cannot use it to fix the car or pay the electric bill. But you are still $10,000 better off than you would have been if you had paid those medical expenses yourself.

These are not the same policy. One is a direct cash transfer. The other is government financing of a specific service. They can have different costs, incentives, administrative burdens, and economic effects, but in both cases, the government uses public resources to improve a private household's financial position.

Which one is socialism? And would your answer change if you knew which political party made the offer?

Now Put the Party Labels Back On

On September 9th, Donald Trump promised a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans retain both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Reuters estimated the proposal would cost about $1.2 trillion, and the spending would require congressional approval.

The offer did not appear by itself. Trump had previously proposed a $2,000 tariff dividend, and his administration distributed a $1,776 payment to military personnel. More recently, the administration announced $500 refunds for nearly one million people who paid full price for insurance through HealthCare.gov and one-time $90 payments for more than 20 million eligible Medicare Part B beneficiaries.

Those examples have different legal structures and purposes. The $500 payments are being described as refunds of excess federal marketplace user fees, not a new healthcare subsidy. The $90 Medicare payments use money from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which Congress funded. Neither is the same as creating a new $1.2 trillion cash program.

However, together they establish something useful for this discussion: government putting money into the hands of individual Americans is not an idea confined neatly to one political side.

Now consider healthcare. Senate Democrats are developing proposals to lower premiums and deductibles, simplify insurance, and expand coverage options, including Medicare-like choices. Some Democrats want government to go considerably further than others.

American politics routinely describes government-financed healthcare as socialism. That makes the kitchen-table question harder. If government spending thousands of dollars to help pay someone’s healthcare costs is socialism, what should we call government putting thousands of dollars directly into that person’s hands?

Before choosing a side, we should probably choose a definition.

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Use the Same Definition Twice

In its traditional economic sense, socialism involves public or collective ownership or control of the means of production. In a basic explanation contrasting capitalism and socialism, the International Monetary Fund describes socialism as a system in which the state owns the means of production.

Under that definition, government spending money on someone does not automatically make an economy socialist. A $5,000 government check does not mean Washington owns the grocery store where the recipient spends it. A Medicare payment does not mean the government owns every doctor’s office, hospital, pharmaceutical company, or medical-device manufacturer involved in providing care. Government can tax, spend, regulate, subsidize, insure, and redistribute money inside an economy that remains overwhelmingly based on private ownership.

However, that is not always how the word socialism is used in American political debate. The definition often becomes much broader: government collects money from taxpayers and uses it to provide something of economic value to an individual. When the benefit is healthcare, that arrangement is frequently called socialism.

If that is the definition, consistency requires us to use it more than once.

If government spending $5,000 to help pay someone’s healthcare costs is socialism because public money is being used for that person’s benefit, then putting $5,000 directly into the same person’s bank account cannot escape examination under the same definition merely because politicians call it a dividend.

Conversely, if a $5,000 government payment is not socialism because redistribution alone does not amount to government ownership of the economy, then publicly financed healthcare cannot automatically become socialism merely because government helps pay the medical bill.

That does not make the policies economically equivalent. One may cost more, require higher taxes, increase borrowing, distort markets, replace expenses households already pay, or produce greater public benefit. Those are arguments worth having. Calling one socialism and the other a dividend does not settle them.

Choose the definition. Then use it twice.

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The Vocabulary Changes Before the Money Does

Political language often decides an argument before the numbers arrive. Money sent to a household can be called a dividend, refund, benefit, incentive, investment, tax credit, or relief. Money going somewhere we disapprove of can become a handout, welfare, or socialism. Sometimes those words identify real differences. A refund is different from a subsidy. Insurance is different from unrestricted cash.

However, language can also pre-frame the policy before anyone asks what it costs or accomplishes. Call something a dividend, and it can sound like money that was always yours. Call it a handout, and it sounds like money someone else did not earn. Call it socialism, and the argument can end before anyone examines the policy.

A useful test is to remove the politician’s name while leaving the policy untouched: same amount, same eligibility, same funding source, same budget effect, and same economic consequences. Would you describe it differently after learning who proposed it?

That is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is a political habit, and it makes serious policy analysis much harder.

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Healthcare Makes the Comparison Harder

Healthcare makes the boundary particularly difficult to maintain. Legitimate disagreements remain over how far government should go in financing medical care, what expanded coverage would cost, how it should be financed, and how greater public involvement would affect patients, providers, insurers, and taxpayers.

However, the mere act of government using public money to reduce someone’s healthcare costs cannot, by itself, settle the socialism question. The Trump administration’s new Medicare payment makes that unusually concrete.

More than 20 million eligible Medicare Part B beneficiaries are slated to receive a one-time $90 payment to help offset premiums, funded by the $2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund. Strip away the party labels and look at the mechanism: Congress funded a federal healthcare account, and the executive branch is directing money from that account to individual beneficiaries to reduce what they pay for government health insurance.

That does not make the Trump administration socialist. It does show why defining socialism simply as government helping someone pay a healthcare bill does not take us very far.

Suppose the contribution were $900 instead of $90, or $9,000. The economic principle would not suddenly change because the number got larger. What would change are the cost, scope, consequences, and degree of government involvement. Those are the things worth debating.

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Put Both Policies Through the Stewardship Test

Set the socialism label aside and examine the policies themselves.

Start with Trump’s proposed $5,000 payment. Government should be able to explain what problem it is trying to solve, whether the goal is to ease household costs, stimulate consumer spending, return revenue to taxpayers, or simply provide additional income. It should also explain where roughly $1.2 trillion would come from. If existing revenue pays for it, what else will that revenue no longer support? If government borrows, what happens to the debt and future interest costs? If more than a trillion dollars of purchasing power reaches households, what effect might that have on demand and prices? Most importantly, what result should taxpayers expect after the money is spent?

Now apply the same test to government-financed healthcare. Government should identify whether the goal is reducing the uninsured population, lowering premiums and deductibles, protecting households from catastrophic bills, or providing another insurance option. It should explain the cost, the financing, who qualifies, and what happens to spending households and employers already make privately.

Higher federal healthcare spending can replace costs families or employers are already paying through premiums or out-of-pocket expenses, so looking only at the government’s new expense can exaggerate the net economic cost, but calling healthcare a public benefit does not make the underlying cost disappear either. Doctors, hospitals, nurses, drug manufacturers, and everyone else providing care still have to be paid.

The useful questions are therefore the same for both proposals: What is the purpose, what does it cost, who pays, who benefits, and what happens afterward? That is where Stewardism begins.

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Stewardism Asks a Better Question

Stewardism asks what government is doing with the power and resources entrusted to it. It asks whether a legitimate public purpose is being served, what alternatives were available, what opportunity costs follow from the choice, whether the commitment is sustainable, whether citizens can see where the money went, and whether success can be measured.

Those questions apply whether government is sending someone $5,000, helping pay a Medicare premium, supporting a farm, financing a weapons system, or offering a tax preference to a corporation. The program changes, but the obligation to justify it does not.

This also has a citizen side. It is easy to demand fiscal responsibility when the other party is spending the money. The harder test is demanding the same explanation when the spending benefits us, our community, our industry, or a cause we support. That is citizen stewardship.

A useful test is simple: Would you accept the same justification if the other party controlled the government? If the answer changes with the party, the problem may not be the policy. It may be the standard.

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The President Can Promise the Check. Congress Controls the Purse.

The $5,000 proposal also raises a constitutional question. Article I places federal spending authority in Congress, and the Appropriations Clause says money cannot be drawn from the Treasury except through appropriations made by law. A president can propose spending and campaign on it, but cannot create a new $1.2 trillion payout simply by announcing one.

Congress would have to provide the legal authority, establish eligibility, determine the funding, and accept responsibility for the consequences. That is not a technical inconvenience. It is part of the constitutional design.

If lawmakers decide every adult citizen should receive $5,000, they should defend the price and explain where the money comes from. If they decide government should assume a larger share of healthcare costs, they should do the same. If either proposal requires borrowing, new revenue, or cuts elsewhere, citizens should know.

The purpose may differ. The constitutional responsibility does not. A president can promise the check. Congress has to own the decision to write it.

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The People’s Money Does Not Change Parties

Public money does not become Republican money when a Republican president wants to spend it, and it does not become Democratic money when Democrats want to spend it. It remains public money.

A dollar spent on a cash payment is a public dollar. So is a dollar spent on Medicare, farm support, military procurement, disaster relief, childcare assistance, or a corporate tax incentive. Those expenditures serve different purposes and can produce very different results, but every one creates an opportunity cost. Money used for one purpose cannot be used for another. Money borrowed today becomes a claim on future revenue. A permanent benefit becomes an obligation future taxpayers inherit.

Stewardship therefore requires government to make the case: Why this program, this amount, these recipients, this funding source, and why now? What evidence will tell us whether it worked?

If citizens demand those answers only when the other party is spending, then we are not really defending fiscal responsibility. We are defending our team. The people’s money deserves a better standard than that.

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Stop Asking for the Label. Ask for the Receipt.

Go back to the household at the kitchen table. The bills are still there. So are the healthcare costs, mortgage, groceries, electric bill, insurance premium, and everything else due this month.

Washington can call the money a dividend, refund, subsidy, tax credit, benefit, or healthcare guarantee. Those words may describe important differences in policy design, but they do not tell that household whether the policy was responsible.

For that, citizens need the receipt: what it cost, where the money came from, who qualified, whether government borrowed, whether another program lost funding, and whether the policy accomplished what its supporters promised.

If publicly financed healthcare is called socialism because government collects and redistributes money for an individual’s benefit, then intellectual consistency requires us to examine direct government cash payments under the same definition. If a $5,000 government check is not socialism because redistribution alone does not amount to government ownership of the economy, then government helping pay a healthcare bill cannot automatically become socialism simply because the benefit arrives through Medicare, Medicaid, an insurance subsidy, or another public program.

Choose the definition. Then use it twice.

After that, the real debate can begin. One program may be worth the cost, while another is not. Maybe one solves a legitimate public problem while another merely moves money around. Maybe one belongs in government, and another does not. Those disagreements are worth having because they force us to talk about what government is actually doing.

If you demand an explanation when the other party writes the check, demand the same explanation when your party does. That is citizen stewardship.

Maybe the first question should not be whether government spending is socialist. Maybe it should be whether it is responsible. Stop asking for the label. Ask for the receipt.

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The Coffman Chronicle is built around a simple idea: the republic works better when citizens ask harder questions, demand clearer answers, and hold every branch of government to the same standard.

If you can afford to support this work, a paid subscription helps me keep doing the research, writing the long-form pieces, and building the Square New Deal and Stewardism arguments without putting them behind a partisan wall.

And whether you subscribe or not, keep asking for the receipt.

The people’s money deserves nothing less.

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Sources

Aboulenein, Ahmed, and Yasmeen Abutaleb. “White House Says It Will Send $500 Obamacare Refunds to Nearly a Million Americans.” Reuters, September 10, 2026. Reuters article

International Monetary Fund. “Back to Basics: What Is Capitalism?” Finance & Development 52, no. 2 (June 2015). International Monetary Fund article

Singh, Kanishka. “Trump Says US to Send One-Time $90 Payment to 20 Million Seniors Enrolled in Medicare.” Reuters, October 3, 2026. Reuters article

Sullivan, Andy, Jonathan Stempel, and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed. “Is Trump’s $5,000 ‘Dividend’ Legal and How Would It Work?” Reuters, September 10, 2026. Updated September 11, 2026. Reuters article

U.S. Congress. “Historical Background on Appropriations Clause.” Constitution Annotated, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7. Accessed October 4, 2026. Congress.gov Constitution Annotated

U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. “Wyden Seeks Input on Major Reforms to Health Coverage in America.” July 30, 2026. Senate Finance Committee source

Two Toxins. Two Different Decisions.

Lead and mercury do not care which political party controls the White House. Both are toxic. Both can damage human health, and reducing exposure to either one costs money. This year, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has been living on both sides of that equation.

In 2024, the Biden EPA finalized stronger requirements to replace lead service lines across the country. The current Trump EPA has continued implementing those requirements, issuing guidance in August to help water systems identify and remove lead pipes. The EPA describes lead as a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to children.

The work is expensive, disruptive, and complicated. Someone has to identify the pipe, dig it up, replace it, repair the property, and pay for the work. However, the reason for doing it is straightforward. Where lead service lines are present, the EPA says they are typically the most significant source of lead in drinking water, and replacing them removes that source of exposure.

Earlier this year, the same EPA made a different calculation involving mercury. In February, the agency repealed tighter 2024 requirements for coal-fired power plants and returned affected facilities to older standards. EPA estimates the rollback will save about $670 million and says American families will ultimately benefit through lower everyday living costs.

The older mercury protections did not disappear. This is not a story about government suddenly deciding mercury is harmless. It is a story about government deciding that an additional level of protection was no longer worth what it required industry to spend.

That raises a question much larger than either regulation: If spending money to reduce exposure to one toxic substance is considered a reasonable cost of protecting the public, what determines when spending money to reduce exposure to another becomes an unnecessary burden?

If the danger remains after the compliance cost disappears, somebody may still inherit the risk. Eventually, somebody may inherit the bill.

Regulation Is Not Automatically the Enemy

None of this means every regulation deserves to survive. Industries change, technology improves, and some requirements become outdated. Others duplicate protections that already exist. Sometimes government creates a burden whose cost simply cannot be justified by what the rule accomplishes.

Those rules should be changed or removed. That is not a retreat from government stewardship. It is government stewardship.

Regulation should never be the purpose of regulation. Government should be able to explain the problem a rule addresses, the protection it provides, and why that protection justifies the burden imposed on businesses and citizens.

Lead makes that principle easy to see. Replacing pipes costs money, but the expense does not make lead less dangerous. The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree there is no known safe level of lead in a child’s blood, and the EPA says lead service lines are the leading source of lead in drinking water where they remain.

We understand what the money is buying: prevention. That does not mean every dollar spent complying with every environmental rule produces an equal public benefit. It means compliance costs alone cannot tell us whether a regulation is wasteful. To know that, we have to ask what the rule was protecting us from.

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Then Look at Mercury

In February 2026, Trump’s EPA repealed specific amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards finalized two years earlier. While the repeal did not eliminate the original mercury rules, it removed the tighter 2024 requirements: a stricter particulate-matter standard for coal-fired power plants, a tighter mercury standard for lignite-fired units, and a requirement for continuous particulate monitoring.

The administration’s argument is straightforward. The EPA says the older standards remain strong and effective, while the additional 2024 requirements imposed costs the agency no longer considers justified. The agency points to the enormous reductions already achieved under the mercury standards and other changes in the power sector. By 2017, mercury emissions from covered power plants had fallen 86% from 2010 levels.

If an older rule already provides substantial protection and a newer requirement costs a great deal while accomplishing very little, government should be willing to reconsider it. However, the 2024 amendments were not paperwork requirements. They concerned emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants, and mercury did not become less toxic when the regulation changed.

The EPA identifies mercury as a neurotoxin. High exposure can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system, while methylmercury is particularly dangerous to developing nervous systems. It can also accumulate through aquatic food chains.

None of that proves every additional reduction is worth any price. It does mean that when government celebrates the money no longer being spent on pollution controls, the accounting cannot stop there.

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Savings for Whom?

The EPA says the repeal is expected to save about $670 million in compliance costs. The administration says those savings will ultimately help American families.

Maybe they will, but before we call $670 million a savings to the American people, another question is worth asking: savings for whom?

Compliance costs are easy to see. A company buys equipment, installs monitoring systems, changes operations, or pays workers to meet a standard. Those expenses appear on a balance sheet. Remove the requirement, and some of those expenses disappear.

What is harder to see is what that spending was purchasing. If a tighter requirement would have prevented additional pollution, eliminating the expense does not automatically eliminate the consequences of the emissions no longer being prevented. Some costs may show up somewhere else through health effects, environmental damage, cleanup, lost work, insurance, or public spending.

Not every dollar industry saves becomes a dollar charged to the public. The accounting is not that simple, but neither is the opposite.

A cost disappearing from one corporate ledger does not prove the economy as a whole has been relieved of it. Sometimes a cost really has been eliminated. Sometimes it has been moved. That is the distinction deregulation has to confront.

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A Working Family Eventually Runs Out of People to Pass the Bill To

Large institutions have ways to move costs. A corporation can raise prices, cut expenses, renegotiate contracts, change investments, buy insurance, or pass some portion of a burden through to customers. Government can raise revenue or move money around a budget.

A working family has fewer options. When a higher cost reaches the kitchen table, there may be nowhere left to send it. The electric bill still has to be paid, as do the rent or mortgage, the insurance premium, and the doctor.

Transferred costs do not arrive in the mailbox labeled “deregulation.” They can arrive as a copay, a higher insurance premium, a missed shift, a cleanup bill, or another demand on a public budget. The people with the smallest financial cushion have the least room to absorb another surprise.

That does not mean every regulation protects working families or every deregulation hurts them. Regulation itself can raise prices and impose costs, and those deserve to be counted too. The accounting simply has to follow the cost all the way to the end, because a corporation can pass a cost down the line. A working family eventually runs out of people to pass the bill to.

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The Square New Deal Test

The Square New Deal does not begin with a preference for more regulation or less regulation. It begins with stewardship.

Government stewardship means obsolete, duplicative, or ineffective rules should go. Government should not require businesses or citizens to spend money merely because Washington has grown accustomed to requiring it. However, government stewardship also requires honesty about what happens when an actual safeguard is weakened.

Corporate stewardship recognizes that businesses have every right to earn a profit and challenge unnecessary burdens. Profit is not the problem, nor is economic growth. Reducing a company’s expense, however, is not necessarily the same thing as eliminating a social cost.

If preventing pollution, injury, or contamination requires spending money, then the public has a legitimate interest in knowing what happens when government decides that money no longer needs to be spent.

Then comes the working-class test. Economic policy cannot end its accounting at the corporate balance sheet. It has to follow the consequences far enough to see who ultimately carries them.

That gives us a simple test for deregulation: What danger was the rule addressing? What did compliance cost? What protection did that spending purchase? Who receives the savings when the requirement is weakened? Who inherits any additional risk? And who eventually pays the bill?

Those questions do not guarantee that every regulation survives, and they should not. They require government to count both sides of the ledger.

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Congress Has a Responsibility Too

This cannot be left entirely to whichever administration controls the EPA. Congress writes the law. Agencies write many of the detailed regulations used to carry it out.

The Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to regulate hazardous air pollution from power plants, including mercury. The Safe Drinking Water Act authorizes the EPA to establish national health-based standards for public drinking water systems.

That leaves administrations room to make different policy judgments within the authority Congress has granted them. One EPA can strengthen a standard. Another can reconsider it.

Congress can intervene directly as well. In 2025, Congress used the Congressional Review Act to disapprove the Biden EPA’s Waste Emissions Charge regulation, and President Trump signed the resolution. The rule consequently lost legal force. Later that year, Congress amended the underlying law so the charge would not begin until emissions reported for 2034.

For the Square New Deal, that raises a straightforward Article I question: If a protection is fundamental enough to safeguard Americans from a known danger, how much of its basic floor should be able to rise and fall every time control of the executive branch changes?

Agencies need flexibility to carry out the law, but Congress also has a responsibility to decide when the public needs something more durable.

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Deregulation Should Remove Waste, Not Simply Move the Cost

That is why the Square New Deal doesn't need a quota for regulation. It needs a standard. Remove what is obsolete. Simplify what is unnecessarily complicated. Update rules when technology makes them outdated. Stop making businesses and citizens spend money on requirements that cannot justify themselves.

However, do not confuse a safeguard with paperwork merely because the safeguard costs money. If weakening a rule saves money without meaningfully increasing risk, that may be responsible deregulation. If the savings come from accepting consequences that will eventually be carried elsewhere, government has not necessarily eliminated the cost. It may have moved it.

Lead costs money to control. Mercury does too. The current EPA is helping water systems implement stronger lead protections inherited from the previous administration while also repealing tighter mercury requirements inherited from that same administration. That comparison does not prove the mercury decision was wrong. It tells us what government should have to prove before calling it a savings. What were we buying with that money? What protection are we giving up? Who receives the benefit? Who accepts the risk? And if consequences arrive later, who gets the bill?

Sometimes a dollar saved really is a dollar saved. Sometimes it is simply a bill that has not reached the next person yet. Deregulation should eliminate waste. It should not allow Washington to call something a savings simply because the cost disappeared from one ledger and arrived on somebody else’s.

The Square New Deal asks one final question: Who inherits the cost?

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Sources

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Analysis of the Final Repeal of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Amendments.” February 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Biden-Harris Administration Issues Final Rule Requiring Replacement of Lead Pipes Within 10 Years.” October 8, 2024. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Environmental Laws that Apply to Mercury.” Accessed October 4, 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “EPA Continues to Reverse Democrats’ War on Beautiful Clean Coal, Finalizes Repeal of Costly Restrictions on Baseload Power Generation.” February 20, 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “EPA Releases New Guidance to Reduce Lead Exposure in Drinking Water, Protect American Children.” August 21, 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “EPA Releases Proposal to End the Burdensome, Costly Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, Saving up to $2.4 Billion.” September 12, 2025. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Health Effects of Exposures to Mercury.” Last updated November 21, 2025. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Lead in Drinking Water.” Accessed October 4, 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.” Last updated July 29, 2026. EPA source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Waste Emissions Charge.” Last updated April 29, 2026. EPA source

The Filing Cabinet Problem

Somewhere in Pennsylvania, an adult is being told to check their childhood vaccination records. That sounds reasonable until you think about what is actually being asked. Find the piece of paper your mother may have been given when you were five years old. Find the records from a pediatrician who may have retired thirty years ago. Call the school district you attended before computers sat on every desk. Hope somebody kept a file through multiple moves, doctors, insurance companies, and half a century of ordinary life. Then figure out exactly which measles vaccine you received.

Pennsylvania is in the middle of a serious measles outbreak. As of September 30th, the Department of Health had confirmed 943 cases across 39 counties, including 176 hospitalizations and five measles-associated deaths. However, the evidence does not suggest that millions of properly vaccinated adults suddenly lost their protection. Of those 943 confirmed cases, the state reported just four among people who were appropriately vaccinated for their age. Two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, or MMR, remain about 97% effective.

The harder question for many adults comes before that one. Do they know what protection they have?

For some people, the answer is surprisingly simple. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention generally considers anyone born before 1957 presumptively immune because measles circulated so widely before vaccination that most people in that generation were infected naturally as children.

For others, the answer may depend on what happened in a doctor’s office more than sixty years ago. The first measles vaccines became available in 1963. Between 1963 and 1967, fewer than one million Americans received an inactivated, or “killed,” vaccine that was later found not to provide adequate protection. People who know they received it should be revaccinated with the current MMR vaccine. The CDC also says people vaccinated before 1968 who don't know which version they received should be revaccinated if they have no medical contraindication.

Now ask someone in their sixties whether the shot they received before kindergarten was the live vaccine or the killed vaccine. They may remember the doctor’s office. They may remember their mother holding their hand. They probably do not remember the formulation.

And why would they? They were children. Their parents followed the medical advice available at the time. They went to school. They grew up. Decades passed. The measles vaccine can provide lifelong protection. The paperwork apparently was expected to do the same.

Pennsylvania Has Made the Question Urgent

This would be an interesting records problem even without an outbreak. Pennsylvania has turned it into an immediate one.

During a serious outbreak, knowing whether you are protected is essential. For many adults, that means answering questions they have not thought about in decades. Did I receive one dose or two? Was the vaccine I received in the 1960s the live vaccine or the older killed version? Did I have measles naturally before vaccines became widely available? Can I prove any of it?

Pennsylvanians are clearly asking. During a typical month, healthcare providers across the state administer about 25,000 MMR doses. In September, as the outbreak grew, they administered more than 53,000. State health center staff also operated 180 pop-up clinics in affected communities.

That response makes sense. People see cases climbing and want to know whether they are protected, but there is a difference between refusing a vaccine and being unable to reconstruct what happened to you before you were old enough to understand the word vaccination.

A sixty-year-old who cannot locate a childhood immunization card is not necessarily someone who ignored public-health advice. They may be someone whose parents followed every recommendation they were given and whose only mistake was failing to preserve a piece of paper for six decades.

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Three Generations, Three Different Answers

The easiest way to understand the confusion is to stop treating every American adult as though they grew up under the same vaccination system. They did not.

For people born before 1957, CDC generally considers them presumptively immune. Measles was so widespread before vaccination that nearly everyone was infected in childhood, and most people in that generation are presumed protected. Healthcare workers can face additional recommendations because of their occupational exposure, but the general rule for other adults is straightforward.

That cutoff can sound strange because the first measles vaccines were not licensed until 1963, but 1957 and 1963 answer two different questions: 1963 tells us when vaccination began, while 1957 is the year the CDC uses to identify the generation presumed to have been exposed naturally.

Someone born in 1955 is therefore generally presumed immune even without a vaccination record. Someone born in 1959 does not receive that same presumption simply because no measles vaccine existed when they were born.

Then comes the generation caught in the transition. When vaccination began in 1963, Americans did not all receive the same vaccine. A live vaccine was available, but so was the killed version used from 1963 through 1967. People with documentation showing they received the live vaccine generally do not need to be revaccinated simply because they received the shot decades ago. People who received the killed vaccine, or do not know which type they received during those years, are different.

Put yourself in the position of someone who was six years old in 1965. Your mother took you to the doctor. A nurse gave you a shot. You went home. More than sixty years later, someone asks whether that syringe contained a live attenuated vaccine or an inactivated one. That is not a reasonable test of memory.

The physician may be dead. The practice may have closed before medical records were digitized. Your school may have merged with another district. Your parents may no longer be alive to ask, and even if they were, there is no particular reason they would remember the formulation of a childhood vaccine administered in 1965.

Then there are younger adults who grew up firmly in the live-vaccine era. Their situation is generally simpler, particularly if they have documentation. The CDC says adults who received two appropriately spaced doses are considered protected and do not need routine measles boosters.

The adult population is not one undifferentiated group wondering whether an old vaccine “wore off.” Some people are presumed immune because they were born into a world where nearly everybody eventually caught measles. Some were vaccinated during a brief period when two very different vaccines were being used. Others received the modern live vaccine but may no longer possess documentation showing when or how many doses they received.

Moreover, that is before we account for another change in the schedule.

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Even the Schedule Changed

For years, one dose of live measles vaccine was the standard childhood protection in the United States. That changed in 1989, when outbreaks among vaccinated school-aged children led federal health officials to recommend a routine two-dose schedule.

The second dose was not primarily meant to rescue people whose immunity had worn off. It was intended to reduce the number of people who remained susceptible because the first dose had not produced immunity.

That history creates another easy misunderstanding today. Someone who received only one measles vaccination as a child before the two-dose schedule became routine may hear that children now receive two doses and reasonably wonder whether they have been inadequately vaccinated for decades.

For most adults, that is not what the CDC guidance says. One dose of MMR vaccine is about 93% effective at preventing measles. Two doses are about 97% effective. The CDC considers most adults born in 1957 or later with at least one appropriate dose to have evidence of protection unless they belong to a group for which two doses are recommended. Those groups include healthcare personnel, international travelers, postsecondary students, close contacts of immunocompromised people, and some people at increased risk during a local outbreak.

The move to a routine two-dose childhood schedule in 1989 therefore does not mean every American who grew up before 1989 now needs another shot. The problem is knowing which rule applies to you.

For a parent looking at a child’s electronic medical record today, that may require a few clicks. For an adult trying to reconstruct vaccinations administered before Ronald Reagan entered the White House, it may require considerably more detective work.

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The Vaccine Isn’t the Weak Link. The Record Is.

If adults vaccinated decades ago are uncertain about their measles protection, it can sound as though the vaccine itself has become unreliable with age. The evidence doesn't support that. CDC says people who received the recommended doses are considered protected, and Pennsylvania’s outbreak data reinforce the point: appropriately vaccinated people account for only a tiny fraction of confirmed cases.

The uncertainty is often not biological, but documentary. Today’s immunization information systems are designed to consolidate vaccination histories from participating providers. However, the modern infrastructure came long after many of the adults now being asked about childhood measles vaccination had already grown up. CDC’s original core data standards for computerized immunization registries date to 1995, decades after the first measles vaccines were administered.

A person vaccinated in 1965 was not entered into some nationwide electronic database that quietly followed them through every move and every doctor since kindergarten. A pediatrician, a school, a county health department, or their parents might have held their record, it might have been transferred somewhere along the way, or it might not have been.

No national organization still maintains every American’s vaccination history. The CDC advises people looking for old records to check with parents, former healthcare providers, schools, colleges, previous employers, and state or local immunization programs.

No villain is in that story. Doctors practiced medicine using the systems available at the time. Parents kept whatever records they understood they needed. Schools collected information for their own purposes. Public-health agencies built better systems as technology made them possible.

However, a system can develop reasonably and still leave behind a problem that becomes obvious only decades later. Measles has exposed one of them. Public-health officials can tell Americans with remarkable precision which vaccine, how many doses, and which years matter. What they cannot always tell an individual citizen is what happened to them. That deserves a different response than another argument over whether vaccines work.

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Citizen Stewardship Does Not Mean Guessing

Citizen stewardship begins with responsibility. If measles is spreading in your community and you do not know whether you are protected, ignoring the question is not much of an answer, but neither is guessing.

The CDC recognizes several ways a person can establish evidence of measles immunity: written documentation of adequate vaccination, laboratory evidence of immunity, laboratory confirmation of previous measles infection, or birth before 1957. For people who cannot find their records, a healthcare provider can help determine whether vaccination or a blood test for evidence of immunity makes sense. The CDC also says there is no harm in receiving another MMR dose if someone may already be immune, as long as the vaccine is medically appropriate for that person.

Those options also create responsibility. Citizen stewardship does not require everyone to become an amateur epidemiologist. It requires taking reasonable steps when your choices can affect people beyond yourself.

Measles is exceptionally contagious. Uncertainty about immunity therefore does not remain entirely private. It can matter to infants too young to be fully vaccinated, people whose immune systems leave them especially vulnerable, and others who may encounter an infected person before anyone realizes an exposure occurred.

That does not give government unlimited authority over someone’s body. It does mean citizenship carries obligations that extend beyond the front door.

The Square New Deal asks a question that applies well beyond vaccines: What kind of citizen are you? A citizen who takes stewardship seriously does not need government to make every decision for them, but they also do not treat uncertainty as permission to ignore a preventable risk to everyone around them. They ask the question, check the record, talk to their doctor, and determine which guidance applies to them.

That is personal responsibility in a functioning social contract, but responsibility cannot run in only one direction.

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Government Stewardship Means Making That Possible

If government expects citizens to know their status, understand rules that have changed over several generations, and act responsibly during an outbreak, it has an obligation to make that reasonably possible.

Pennsylvania has already built part of that infrastructure. The Pennsylvania Immunization Electronic Registry System, or PIERS, lets adults access official immunization records documented in the state system. Residents can save and print those records through a public portal or submit a formal request when they cannot use the portal. Philadelphia maintains its own immunization registry, PhilaVax, rather than reporting vaccinations through PIERS.

That is useful government, but PIERS can only return information that made its way into PIERS. A computerized registry created decades after someone received a childhood vaccine cannot create a record that was never entered. Older records may still be scattered among families, former doctors, schools, clinics, and state or local systems. That leaves government with a responsibility beyond maintaining a database. It has to explain what happens when the database comes up empty.

A person born before 1957 should be able to learn quickly that the general rule is presumptive immunity. Someone vaccinated between 1963 and 1967 should understand why the type of vaccine they received could matter. Someone with one documented dose should be able to determine whether that is sufficient for their circumstances. And someone with no usable record should not have to piece together the answer from six government webpages and a forty-year-old school file. Public health works better when the instructions survive contact with ordinary life.

Pennsylvania has also shown during this outbreak that government can move resources toward people rather than simply waiting for people to find them. State health officials have operated pop-up vaccination clinics in affected communities while healthcare providers have administered tens of thousands of additional MMR doses.

Government stewardship is not assuming every citizen has perfect records, treating every uncertain adult as though they refused to participate, or telling everyone to get another shot regardless of their circumstances. The obligation is to make the path understandable: tell people which birth years matter, which vaccine years deserve a second look, where they can search for existing records, and what their options are when those records are gone.

Government cannot preserve every piece of paper from every doctor’s office that closed during the last sixty years. It can make sure losing that piece of paper does not leave a citizen without a next step.

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You Shouldn’t Need Your Mother’s Filing Cabinet

There is something almost absurd about asking a sixty-year-old American to prove what happened in a pediatrician’s office before they learned long division. During a measles outbreak, however, that information can matter.

For some people, the answer is easy. They were born before 1957 and are generally presumed immune. Others have clear documentation showing they received the live vaccine. Many younger adults have records showing the recommended doses and can be reasonably confident that their protection remains strong.

The difficult cases are the people in between. They remember getting shots, going to school, and watching their parents fill out forms. What they lack is a complete medical archive from childhood. That should not be treated as irresponsibility.

A child vaccinated in 1966 did not choose the vaccine formulation. A teenager vaccinated under a one-dose schedule did not write the schedule. A parent who eventually lost an immunization card did not anticipate needing it sixty years later.

The systems changed. The recommendations changed. The records changed. The citizen grew older inside it all.

That does not erase personal responsibility. If measles is spreading and you genuinely do not know whether you are protected, the responsible thing is to find out, but responsibility works best when government meets the citizen halfway.

A functioning public-health system should be able to tell people, in plain language, which rules apply to them and what to do when the record is gone. That is not paternalism. It is stewardship.

Citizens have a duty to take reasonable care of their own health and to consider the people around them. Government has a duty to make responsible action possible without requiring people to become historians of their own childhood medical care.

The measles vaccine can protect a person for decades. Our expectations of public-health infrastructure should follow the same timeline. No one should need their mother’s filing cabinet to figure out whether they did what society asked of them sixty years ago. And when the filing cabinet is gone, the system should still know how to help them find the answer.

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Sources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Clinical Questions about Measles.” Measles (Rubeola). Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Clinical Questions about Measles

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Historical IIS Core Data Elements.” Immunization Information Systems. July 31, 2024. Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Historical IIS Core Data Elements

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Measles Vaccination.” Measles (Rubeola). Updated April 29, 2026. Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Measles Vaccination

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Measles — United States, First 26 Weeks, 1989.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 38 (1989). Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Measles, United States, First 26 Weeks, 1989

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Questions About Measles.” Measles (Rubeola). Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Questions About Measles

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Staying Up to Date with Your Vaccine Records.” Adult Vaccines. June 13, 2024. Accessed October 3, 2026. CDC — Staying Up to Date with Your Vaccine Records

Pennsylvania Department of Health. “Pennsylvania Department of Health Confirms Fifth Measles-Associated Death, Provides Statewide Update on Outbreak as Cases Reach 943 in 39 Counties.” September 30, 2026. Accessed October 3, 2026. Pennsylvania Department of Health — September 30 Measles Update

Pennsylvania Department of Health. “PIERS Public Portal.” Pennsylvania Immunization Electronic Registry System. Accessed October 3, 2026. Pennsylvania Department of Health — PIERS Public Portal

The file was called MOM CARE MASTER—FINAL. It contained five color-coded tabs, fourteen dropdown menus, and a column labeled UNFORESEEN NEEDS, which was empty because nobody had foreseen any.

“This should keep everything organized,” Kevin announced during the family video call.

Gloria leaned closer to her tablet. “I didn’t know my hip required its own accounting department.”

Her doctor expected the surgery to go well. Gloria was seventy-eight, stubborn in all medically useful ways, and determined to recover at home. For several weeks, however, she would need help with meals, medications, physical therapy, laundry, transportation, and anything located below knee level.

Gloria’s oldest daughter, Beth, lived ten minutes away. Kevin lived forty minutes away and was, in his own words, “good with systems.” Their younger sister, Amy, lived two hours away but had volunteered to handle telephone calls, insurance questions, and appointment scheduling.

Kevin shared his screen. “Blue is me. Yellow is Amy. Green is Beth.”

“What color am I?” Gloria asked.

“Gray.”

“Why gray?”

“You’re the care recipient, not a task owner.”

Gloria folded her arms. “I can still make toast.”

Kevin added TOAST—SELF-MANAGED to the meal tab.

The spreadsheet covered six weeks. Each row included a date, task, assigned person, priority level, completion status, and notes. Kevin had created a dropdown menu with the options NOT STARTED, IN PROGRESS, COMPLETE, and WAITING ON THIRD PARTY.

Gloria read the last one twice. “Is the third party the undertaker?”

“No, Mom.”

“I’m just trying to understand the system.”

Kevin explained that overdue tasks would automatically turn red.

“I know what red means,” Gloria said. “I owned a checkbook before you were born.”

Beth watched her siblings debate whether medication reminders belonged under HEALTHCARE or DAILY SUPPORT. She had spent the previous two weeks calling the surgeon, borrowing a shower chair, moving a bedroom lamp, and removing every rug Gloria insisted had never caused anyone trouble.

The spreadsheet looked beautiful. For the first time, Beth thought maybe this wouldn't all fall on her.

Gloria’s surgery went well. She came home on Friday afternoon with a walker, two ice packs, four prescriptions, and twelve pages of instructions printed in type small enough to qualify as a vision test.

Beth drove her home, helped her change clothes, arranged the pill bottles on the kitchen counter, and heated the soup Amy had sent through a delivery service.

At 6:14, Beth’s phone chimed. Kevin had updated the spreadsheet. TRANSPORTATION HOME FROM HOSPITAL—COMPLETE. At 6:16, it chimed again. EVENING MEAL—COMPLETE.

Beth was still washing the soup bowl.

The first weekend went smoothly. Kevin came Saturday morning and installed a temporary handrail beside the back steps. He stayed for three hours, fixed a dripping bathroom faucet, and labeled the refrigerator shelves with blue painter’s tape. He marked all three tasks complete before leaving the driveway.

Amy called Gloria twice a day. She also spent forty-five minutes arguing with the insurance company about a physical-therapy copayment. That earned her two yellow cells and a note documenting the confirmation number.

Beth handled the spaces between the cells. She noticed Gloria couldn't carry a cup of coffee while using the walker. She replaced the batteries in the television remote. She found the left compression sock behind the recliner and convinced Gloria that wearing only the right one was not “close enough.” None of those things appeared on the spreadsheet.

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The Spaces Between the Cells

On Monday morning, Kevin assigned himself the prescription refill. At noon, he added a note. “Beth can pick up since she is already nearby.” Beth was not already nearby. She was at work.

The pharmacy was six minutes from Gloria’s house, so everyone treated it as though it were inside Beth’s kitchen. She picked up the prescription after work. The pharmacist said the insurance company would not cover it until the following day.

Beth called the doctor, called the insurance company, called the pharmacy again, and waited on hold long enough to hear the instrumental version of “Lean on Me” four times. At 7:42 that evening, Kevin marked the prescription COMPLETE. Beth made herself a peanut-butter sandwich for dinner.

By the second week, the spreadsheet had become more detailed, and the care had become less evenly divided. Amy scheduled Gloria’s follow-up appointment from two hours away. Beth drove her there. Kevin ordered groceries online. Beth carried them inside, put them away, and returned the low-sodium soup because Gloria said it tasted like “water that had heard about chicken.”

Amy arranged for a home-health nurse. Beth changed her work schedule to be there when the nurse arrived. It was the third time in six workdays she had rearranged her hours, and her supervisor had started asking how long the arrangement would last.

Kevin added a new column called TASK OWNER to distinguish the person responsible for a task from the person physically performing it. This improvement resulted in Kevin owning several tasks Beth performed.

Whenever anyone asked how things were going, Kevin said, “Pretty well. Almost everything is green.” He was referring to the spreadsheet. Beth was beginning to dislike the color green.

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Every request seemed small on its own. Could she stop by before work and make sure Gloria had eaten? Could she bring the mail inside? Could she put the clean sheets on the bed? Could she look for the physical therapist’s business card? It was often faster to do something than to explain why she could not, so Beth kept saying yes. She also kept updating the spreadsheet because Kevin sent reminders when she did not.

On Thursday evening, Beth sat at Gloria’s kitchen table entering completion dates while her mother watched a game show in the next room. From the television, an audience applauded a woman who had correctly guessed the price of a refrigerator.

Gloria called from the recliner. “Are you working?”

“I’m updating your care spreadsheet.”

“I thought you were providing the care.”

“Apparently, I’m in charge of documenting it too.”

Gloria was quiet for a moment. “Is there a box you can check for looking tired?”

Beth glanced at the dark window above the sink. Her hair had come loose from its clip, and a pale crease marked her cheek where she had rested her face against her hand. “No.”

“There should be.”

Beth closed the laptop. “I’m fine.”

Gloria gave her the same look Beth had been giving her for two weeks whenever she said exactly that.

By Friday morning, Beth was not fine. She woke with a fever, a sore throat, and an ache behind her eyes. She sent one message to the family group. “I’m sick. I can’t go to Mom’s today.”

Kevin responded first. “Understood. Which tasks need to be reassigned?”

Beth stared at the message, then she typed: “All of them.” She turned off her phone and went back to sleep.

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All of Them

At nine o’clock, Gloria called Kevin. “Do you know where Beth is?”

“She’s sick.”

“I know that. Do you know where my medication list is?”

Kevin opened the spreadsheet. “It says the list is in the kitchen binder.”

“There are three binders.”

“Did you check the one labeled medical?”

“That one contains appliance warranties.”

At ten o’clock, Gloria called again. The physical therapist had moved her appointment earlier. At ten-fifteen, the pharmacy called about a prescription. At ten-thirty, Gloria remembered that her clean sheets were still in the dryer.

Kevin looked at the spreadsheet. According to the spreadsheet, laundry was complete. He called Gloria. “It says the sheets were washed.”

“They were.”

“And dried?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“They’re still in the dryer.”

Kevin waited.

Gloria waited longer.

“Mom, the spreadsheet says laundry is complete.”

“Then ask the spreadsheet to put the fitted sheet on my bed.”

Kevin drove to Gloria’s house. Amy left home at the same time and arrived shortly after noon.

By then, Kevin had found the medication list inside a grocery bag beneath the telephone, discovered the prescription wasn't ready, and tried to put the fitted sheet on the bed. He had secured three corners. Whenever he pulled the fourth into place, one of the others escaped.

Amy found him standing beside the bed holding a corner of the sheet in each hand. “What are you doing?”

“Laundry.”

“This looks more like hostage negotiation.”

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Gloria called from the living room. “The physical therapist needs my medication list.”

“I found it,” Kevin shouted.

“That’s last month’s.”

Kevin looked down at the paper. “Where is this month’s?”

“Beth knows.”

By four o’clock, Amy had called the doctor twice, rescheduled a follow-up appointment, and explained to the insurance company that Gloria Nolan had not received a knee replacement, no matter what their records claimed.

Kevin had picked up the prescription, taken out the trash, washed three dishes, retrieved the mail, and moved a potted violet from the windowsill because Gloria believed it was receiving “discouraging light.”

They had also made lunch. Gloria rejected the first sandwich because Kevin used mustard. She rejected the second because Amy cut it diagonally. “I’m recovering from surgery,” she said. “I haven’t become a different person.”

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The Notes Column

By early evening, Kevin and Amy sat at the kitchen table with the spreadsheet open between them. Four tasks had occupied most of their day. None had gone according to the notes.

Amy scrolled through the rows. “Why is Beth’s name in the comments on my insurance task?”

“Because she had Mom’s card.”

“It’s also on your pharmacy task.”

“She was nearby.”

“She wasn’t nearby. She was at work.”

Kevin continued scrolling. Beth’s name appeared in the notes thirty-one times.

Ask Beth for the door code. Beth knows which entrance. Beth has the insurance card. Beth can drop this off. Beth will remind Mom. Beth may need to follow up. Beth can handle if necessary. Even the emergency plan listed Beth as the primary contact. The backup number was Beth’s office.

Kevin leaned back. “We didn’t divide the work.”

Amy looked at the green cells covering the screen. “We divided the credit.”

Gloria had entered the kitchen quietly with her walker. “No,” she said. “You divided the chores. Beth carried the worrying.”

Neither of them answered.

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Starting Over

The following evening, after Beth’s fever broke, the siblings held another family meeting. There was no screen sharing.

Kevin apologized first. Amy apologized second. Beth tried to tell them it was all right, but Gloria interrupted her. “It isn’t.”

Beth looked down at her hands. “I know I kept saying yes,” she said. “But nobody ever asked what yes was costing me.”

Kevin closed the laptop. They began again. This time, they did not assign isolated tasks. They assigned whole days.

On Kevin’s days, he handled meals, medication, transportation, phone calls, and whatever unexpected need came up. If the pharmacy rejected a prescription, the physical therapist changed the schedule, or a fitted sheet refused to cooperate, it was his problem to solve.

Amy took every other weekend and several weekday afternoons. She arranged to work remotely from Gloria’s house twice a month. On those days, the phone calls, errands, questions, and things nobody had thought to schedule belonged to her.

They also added scheduled time when Beth wasn't the first call, the backup call, or the person everyone called to locate the thing they couldn't find.

Gloria took back the responsibilities she could safely manage herself. She watered her violets, made her own toast, and insisted on folding towels because, as she explained, “There are still some things a woman should not have to watch her children do badly.”

The revised spreadsheet had fewer colors and no dropdown menus. Kevin removed the TASK OWNER column. Amy added a column for the actual time each responsibility required. Beth deleted the phrase that appeared most often in the notes: “Ask Beth what needs to be done.”

The spreadsheet was no longer beautiful. There were gaps, corrections, and honest estimates. Some cells remained unfinished. Others contained notes such as TOOK TWO HOURS or PHARMACY STILL CONFUSED. For the first time, it showed the work as it really was.

Two weeks later, Gloria stood in front of the printed schedule hanging on her refrigerator. She pointed to a purple block. “What does purple mean?”

“Kevin is responsible that day,” Beth said.

Gloria picked up the kitchen trash and handed it to him. “Good. Purple can take this outside.”

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Welcome to the Sunday Funnies.

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PREMIUM UNLEADED, PREMIUM EVENING

We’ve reached the point where “date night” is just putting on your good shirt and watching the pump ask whether you’d like to finance. At these prices, the complimentary mint is whatever you find under the driver’s seat.

DEWEY DECIMAL? NEVER HEARD OF HER

We spent centuries building temples to human knowledge, only to discover the future needed somewhere to generate a picture of George Washington riding a shrimp. In 2026, progress is measured in megawatts and increasingly nervous utility bills.

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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD CENTS

The penny looked at Mitch McConnell and realized this retirement package has some serious loopholes. Somewhere, a nickel just quietly updated its résumé.

FARMAGEDDON

These days, “tightening your belt” is less financial advice than an OSHA violation. The American farmer would like to unsubscribe from character-building experiences.

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THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

It appears “fake news” gets a lot less convenient when it stops showing up. Nothing says master of the media cycle like holding a press event for the ficus. We must admit, though, our blood pressure is beginning to recover a touch.

That’s enough civilization for one week. Please exit through the gift shop, silence your notifications, and avoid eye contact with Monday.

Until next time, may your headlines be innocuous, your prescriptions strong enough, and your mental health just a touch more manageable.

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My daughter and I went to the Versailles Apple Festival today. We found homemade ice cream, a Jesse James gang story, and somebody’s pet house goat.

That’s a pretty good day in Missouri. And we didn’t even have to get arrested.

My daughter was my camera girl and my editor. She filmed our adventures and put together the Along the Way video above. I did the talking. She made it worth watching.

The ice cream was churned by an old John Deere hit-and-miss engine brought down by folks from Palmyra. Now, I’ve been around plenty of machinery that made work. I’m considerably more interested in machinery that makes dessert.

We stopped at the Martin Hotel, home of the historical society, and heard a story about the Jesse James gang. I’ll have more to share from that visit, too. You can go looking for history around here and find yourself standing right in the middle of somebody’s good story.

Then we met the goat.

A house goat.

I’m still hung up on that part. Does it have its own bedroom? And if it eats the electric bill, does that count as paying it?

Come along with us in this week’s Along the Way video above. We got plenty more pictures and video today, so there are a few more stories coming your way.

That’s one of my favorite things about getting out to these festivals. You start talking to somebody, and pretty soon you’ve got a story you wouldn’t have found sitting at home.

Although apparently, at one particular home, you could’ve found a goat.

Next week in Coffman’s Landing

Mitchell and Dudley have their bicycles out, and that ought to be enough to make the adults nervous.

We’ve got a steep hill, wheelies, a flat tire, and a drainage ditch that two boys decide has recreational possibilities. By Friday, motorcycles roll onto Main Street, and Cecil Boone gets a chance to settle a story that’s been growing all week.

• Monday, October 5 — No Hands: Two bicycles, one steep hill, and a cousin’s story that may be taller than either boy.

• Tuesday, October 6 — One Wheel: The boys try to lift a front tire—and discover something else that needs fixing.

• Wednesday, October 7 — Two Roads: Mitchell wins on pavement. Dudley chooses gravel. Then a flat tire ends the argument.

• Thursday, October 8 — The Ditch: A drainage ditch gives the boys a place to ride—until Mitchell aims a little too high.

• Friday, October 9 — Both Wheels: Motorcycles arrive on Main Street, and Cecil Boone finally settles the cousin’s bicycle story.

Each Five Minutes in America episode stands on its own, but these five belong together. The public episodes arrive one each weekday. Paid readers can hear the entire week tonight.

If you’d like to ride ahead with Mitchell and Dudley, become a paid member of The Coffman Chronicle. You’ll get all five episodes now, plus each coming week’s stories every Saturday before their weekday release.

Your membership helps me keep writing and recording them. I’d be glad to have you along.

HEAR THE WHOLE WEEK NOW

And tell me: where did your bicycle take you when you were a kid? Hit reply. I’d love to hear your story.

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Tony

Five Minutes in America is presented by YourPocketConstitution.com—because every citizen should own the instruction manual.

One rider, Blue, needs a haircut. Cecil objects to the noise outside his window. T.C. Redford helps the riders clear the storefronts, and Blue promises to leave without revving his engine. Cecil lets him wait his turn.

The boys marvel at the motorcycles, then ask Cecil about the old bicycle. The cousin really did pass Warren’s hardware store with his front tire in the air. He set it down outside Cecil’s door when a delivery truck eased out below him.

He never reached the Minnow Bucket on one wheel. Dudley decides the part Cecil saw is still a pretty good story.

Paid subscribers receive all five episodes of Five Minutes in America each Saturday in Along the Way, before the stories unfold one day at a time for everyone else.

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Five Minutes in America is presented by YourPocketConstitution.com—because every citizen should own the instruction manual. Get yours free today, and keep the Constitution close enough to use.

They begin measuring each other’s climbs by a clump of grass and then a pale rock. Mitchell fixes his eyes on getting higher than Dudley.

He doesn’t hear the truck on the gravel road beyond the far bank until Dudley warns him. When Mitchell finally sees it, he presses back on his pedals. His tire skids in the loose dirt, and he tumbles into the ditch.

The scrape on his knee will heal. The question about Dudley’s cousin—and the truck in that story—can wait until Cecil Boone opens his barbershop tomorrow.

Paid subscribers receive all five episodes of Five Minutes in America each Saturday in Along the Way, before the stories unfold one day at a time for everyone else.

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Five Minutes in America is presented by YourPocketConstitution.com—because every citizen should own the instruction manual. Get yours free today, and keep the Constitution close enough to use.

On a smooth street, Mitchell’s red bicycle reaches the oak tree first. Dudley asks for another course: a gravel lane outside town, where he knows which tracks are packed hard and which stones will roll beneath a tire.

This time Dudley wins. A moment later, a bit of wire flattens Mitchell’s rear tire.

The boys walk to Jack Floyd’s shed for a patch kit and a pump. Finding the leak takes longer than either race, but they get the tire holding air again.

From the top of Main Street, they can see the drainage ditch they’ll try tomorrow. They can also see the hill in Dudley’s cousin’s story.

Paid subscribers receive all five episodes of Five Minutes in America each Saturday in Along the Way, before the stories unfold one day at a time for everyone else.

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Five Minutes in America is presented by YourPocketConstitution.com—because every citizen should own the instruction manual. Get yours free today, and keep the Constitution close enough to use.