Victims of the budget battles
Tom Ehrich reflects on the ways that our battles over the budget leave out the needs of the vulnerable.
Budget battles disregard the vulnerable
By TOM EHRICH in Religion News Service
My sister and I stood in the assisted-living apartment set up for our 94-year-old father and realized the moment had passed. Our nation has come to such a moment as this. A huge generation is starting to cross the line into retirement and, in time, dependence on others. Joining them in dependency are a vast and growing population of people who have no wealth and power, who lost in recent decades of power-grabbing and wealth-grabbing, and now will have health care, housing and security only if those who defeated them provide it.
. . .
There is no way for any of us to avoid standing in this room, looking at deterioration, aging and mindless mismanagement of the public sector. We have difficult decisions to make. I just wish I saw more sadness and more awareness of conflicted feelings.
Instead, I see glee. Finally, the tables have turned, and those who don't want to care for anyone else can slash spending on which others depend.
Finally, those with adequate means can stop providing for those who should have been born smarter or whiter, who should have worked harder and avoided getting injured in combat, who should have said No when invited to smoke cigarettes or to eat fast food.
The glee of young conservatives in Congress and state governments is disturbing . . .
As I noted in a FaceBook posting: The challenge is that we are getting to the point (if we're not already there) in which the current model is unaffordable and unsustainable. The same "back to the good old days" mantra that reverberates throughout the church does so in politics and economics as well. The question is: How do we get a sustainable and compassionate economic system and how can we get enough of a momentum shift to elect folks to implement it?
Posted by Tom Sramek, Jr.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
|
February 23, 2011 6:06 PM
"the current model is unaffordable and unsustainable"
Yeah---with the lowest effing tax rates in several generations it is!
I am SO SICK of conservatives (I don't mean you, Tom) whining about "The Good Old Days", without the Good Old Days' tax rates.
During WW2, I've heard that the tax on income over a million dollars was 100%. Now adjust for inflation (and we did have that "Second Pearl Harbor" on 9/11): do you think we could get a top rate of even 50%?! No, even w/ the top rate of 33%, we still hear the cry of "Taxed Enough Already!" (from whence came the TEA party).
It's like people don't think they'll ever half to DEAL WITH the results of our underfunded schools, or underfunded infrastructure, or underfunded environment: safe in our gated communities (w/ our own grid and environmental bubble? Huh?).
Whatever happened to "To Provide for the COMMON Good"??? I'm sorry, but there can be NO "Common Good", w/ a top tax-bracket of 33%, for 250K/year and UP.
...but then, the rich (too many of 'em) don't believe in a Common Good anyway, so that works out fine.
Lord have mercy!
JC Fisher
Go Wisconsin State Workers! Go Unions! Solidarity Forever!!!
Posted by tgflux![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
|
February 24, 2011 4:02 AM