When most Americans think of Matthew Lesko, they think of a guy running around in a question mark suit yelling at the top of his lungs and chasing away bill collectors with a large book.

Last week, I reviewed Bernard Goldberg’s 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.  I drew up a list of his selections with which I agreed, those with which I disagreed, and added my own suggestions.  One of Goldberg’s selections that I did not concur with was that of “government guru” Matthew Lesko.  You know who I’m talking about.   The guy with the question mark suits and crazy glasses.

Shortly after the article was posted I was contacted by Lesko’s assistant to see if I was interested in interviewing him.  Why the heck not?  Besides, he did make a link to my article on his blog on August 11th.  Why not give him our money’s worth, so to speak?

So I spoke with him on the phone for about forty five minutes.   When most Americans think of Matthew Lesko they think of a guy running around in a question mark suit yelling at the top of his lungs and chasing away bill collectors with a large book.  One might wonder if he behaves in this way at home.  On the contrary, when he is not in front of the camera, Lesko is soft spoken and mild mannered, belying his image as a manic merchandiser.    

During our conversation we talked about Bernard Goldberg, the New York Consumer Protection Board, Iraqi war veterans and the role government plays in our lives.

On Bernard Goldberg

I began by asking Lesko if he was disappointed that he wasn’t ranked higher on Goldberg’s list.  Lesko is listed 99th out of 100 in Goldberg’s book.  He ranks ahead of only Rick and Kathy Hilton, the parents of Paris Hilton.  Lesko replied that he is only disappointed that he wasn’t 100th, because 99 is “not as distinctive” a number as 100.

I asked Lesko if Goldberg was wrong to declare that he was one of the 100 people screwing up America.  “From his viewpoint,”  Lesko responded, “he’s right.”  Lesko went on to say that if Goldberg is of the point of view that “telling people how to get government money is wrong” then he is one of the 100 people screwing up America.   

Since Goldberg acknowledged that no two people would agree on a list of 100 people who were screwing up America, I thought that it was only fair to ask Lesko who he thought was screwing up America.

Lesko was surprisingly reticent in naming anyone.  At least at first.  “Ideologues on both sides.  To say that the left is good and the right is bad or vice versa is illogical.  Ideology is harmful.  It’s not intellectually honest.  Our world is too complex.”

When I pressed him to name someone his first reply was, naturally, Bernard Goldberg.  However, he did not elaborate.  I suppose that there was no need.  As for ideologues on the Left, Lesko cited Ralph Nader and Ted Kennedy, although he believes that both have done some good things.  But sometimes they simply go too far.

“If Bernard Goldberg were here with us what would you say to him?” I asked.

Replied Lesko:  “Thank him.”

On the New York State Consumer Protection Board

Goldberg’s principle objection to Lesko was the December 2004 report of the New York State Consumer Protection Board (NYSCPB), which asserted that his book Free Money to Pay Your Bills was “peppered with exaggerations and half-truths about government grants.”  In the introduction to that book, Lesko writes, “A degree of lying — you know, white lies — seems to be inherent in all languages and all forms of communication.  It’s not really lying; it’s more a matter of not presenting the downside of a situation.”

With this in mind I asked Lesko if not presenting the downside of a situation constituted a half-truth?  “I’m not sure what a half-truth is,” Lesko replied.  Lesko then presented a hypothetical scenario.   If you pick up a woman for a date, is she going to look the same as she does at 5 a.m.?   

But then Lesko got back on topic.  “What I do in my book is let people know about these programs,” he said.  As for his commercials, he has only a minute to get his message across and that does not leave time for the “ifs, ands & buts.”   

One of the NYSCPB’s chief complaints against Lesko was the selling of his mailing lists to companies such as Grant PAC and Grant Search — telemarketing firms who were engaged in phony grant schemes and last year settled these charges with the Federal Trade Commission.  I asked him what standards companies had to meet in order to buy his lists, and if he had modified any of those standards since the issuance of the NYSCPB Report.  Lesko replied that he does not directly sell his lists but rather does that through a broker.  He went on to say that he is in the midst of researching when his lists were sold to the aforementioned companies.  Lesko added that anyone could have accessed his list if they were willing to pay for it.  “You could buy Time Magazine’s list,” he said emphatically.

I asked Lesko why he believed he had become a target of the NYSCPB.  He believes that the NYSCPB’s principle motivation behind targeting him was to “sell a report.”  By putting his name in this report, they attracted media attention.  Lesko told me that he googled his name on the Internet and found what he described as “lies” about him.  He told me that these accusations “shocked” him and that he was “hurt” and “blown back” by them.  He agrees that telemarketers who promise grant money and don’t deliver are “bad people” but that he has nothing to do with their activities.  He argues that the NYSCPB acknowledges that they have never received any complaints about Lesko’s products or services.   

What shocked him more than anything else was that a government agency was eager to go after him, when he is the “only person who had said anything good about the government.”  Of course, one might argue that the government might not be pleased to hear someone state that there are programs that even “the government does not know about.”  Lesko was also puzzled that he should be criticized for telling people about welfare programs as if they were inherently bad.  Lesko pointed out that a family of four that earns up to $38,000 a year is eligible for various types of welfare programs.  “A lot of Wal-Mart and military families are eligible for these programs,” said Lesko.

On Helping Iraqi War Veterans

If Matthew Lesko is bad for the American consumer why would the U.S. Army, through Walter Reed Hospital, have invited him to give a presentation to wounded Iraqi soldiers last year, where he gave out books and DVDs free of charge?

Lesko served a tour of duty in Vietnam and reflected upon his return to the U.S.  “What hurt me the most was that nobody cared.  My other friends found a way out.  If you served you were not looked upon well.”

His principle motivation for assisting Iraqi veterans and their families, aside from his own personal experience, is that people who most deserve government benefits have difficulty trying to find information necessary to access to them.  Sure, the Department of Defense and the Veterans’ Administration offers some help, but veterans are eligible for so many other programs from a cross-section of government departments and agencies.    He adds that one of the reasons that Walter Reed contacted him was that there is an understanding that government “can’t communicate with the average person.”  Say what you will about Lesko.  The man can talk to people.

On the Role of Government

Matthew Lesko was once described by a right-wing Internet blogger as “the mortal enemy of all conservatives!”

I ask him about this and he tells me that people can frame things however they wish and that they are entitled to their opinions.   “I’m not aiming to get legislation.  I’m just reporting reality.  I don’t approve of every government program.  But I feel strongly that people should have access to it,” Lesko opines.

So is there such a thing as a free lunch?

“No,” Lesko says definitively.  “If you buy my book it does not mean that you will get a check in the mail from the government next Thursday,” he said bluntly.  Lesko argues that there are scores of diet books in the marketplace, but yet Americans are getting fatter.  But like everyone else, the diet industry has to capture the public imagination.  So one will see headlines, “Thinner Thighs in 30 Days,” not “This Diet Will Put You Through Hell.”    

Yet government itself takes on a life of its own, although it is often not certain of where it is going.  Lesko pointed out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service has spent $5 million so that it can increase the number of individuals and families who are in receipt of food stamps.  He also cited Peter G. Peterson’s book Running on Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future & What Americans Can Do About It.  According to Peterson, a former Secretary of Commerce in the Nixon Administration, only 12% of government money is directed to the poor.  Lesko wondered aloud how Republicans could be the party of small government when President Bush received a $250 million subsidy to build a stadium for the Texas Rangers and Dick Cheney received $3 billion in government contracts for Haliburton.     

In fairness to the Bush Administration, there has not been much argument in favor of reducing the size of government.  After all, this past week President Bush signed a $286 billion Highway bill into law.  Beginning next year, senior citizens will receive coverage of their prescription drugs, thus beginning the first entitlement program in America since the Johnson Administration.  These are hardly the acts of a small government conservative.  

In short, once a government program begins it, for all intents and purposes, lives forever.  If our wealthiest citizens have access to government programs they don’t need, why ought citizens with modest means who need these programs the most be denied access to these programs?  In other words, do Americans want less government or do they want Lesko government?

Of course, there are critics of Lesko who are critical of his use of public information, repackaging it and selling it for a profit.  But as Lesko points out, there are tax lawyers who receive enormous amounts of government money to explain information that is available to the public.  Besides, of the nearly 100 books he has written, only a dozen “have really done anything.”  There are no guarantees in life.   Even for Matthew Lesko.