OK: I've already posted somewhere (I can't remember if it was in my blog or on Facebook) that I am all excited about my first chance to vote in this off-year election. I've been reading and listening a lot about the issues: health reform, social security, debt, housing crisis, banking crisis, double-dip reception. . . the list is endless (I want to thank mom for listening to the local NPR station in the morning while we are getting ready and in the drive to campus!)
But with all of this stuff going one, I don't understand one thing: if there is any significant change in the Congress, how are we going to deal with these issues?
I understand the frustration that some of the "Tea Party" people feel. Lots of us felt the same way during the Bush years. . . but regardless of our approach to solutions, we all agree that these issues I mentioned need to be addressed. How can they be addressed when Congress is going to be intentionally deadlocked with this off year election!
OK: let's look at a couple of these issues. Let's go to health care reform. Sorry, free market does NOT make for good health care. Insurance companies are the only ones who come out on the long end of that stick. Professionals are frustrated by quotas set by insurance companies and we Americans are not getting the quality of care that the "free market" touts that we have. I have an aunt who is struggling with diabetes. She was diagnosed when she was 12 and she is just now 24. Thanks to the reform passed this past year, she can get insurance, even with here pre-existing disease now. But if that reform had NOT passed--or worse--this plan is repealed with a different Congress, she will die before she is 30! Why can other countries in industrialized Europe and in Asia make universal health care work, but we can't? By changing the faces in Congress in November, we are not going to make ANY headway in this matter.
OK: Social security. I know that I will never see anything that I pay into social security and I know I will have to work longer than my mom & dad, and their parents. So I am not worried about myself. I am worried about my parents and my grand parents who DID contribute to the system and DID plan on it to take care of them in their old age. I know we are in a different world than where FDR was at the end of the Great Depression. But he had the right idea that collectively we can work to make all Americans have some sense of security as they age or in cases where they can no longer work as they have previously. I think it is really ironic that many who argue about changes in health care and supporting social security express their fundamental Christian faith. Didn't Jesus challenge us to take care of one another. Didn't Jesus inform the disciples to take care of those in need--widows and orphans and the sick? Didn't Jesus as that we tithe?
Tho' I don't necessarily invoke Jesus as my personal savior, I certainly respect this part of his teachings and do what I can. I see my deductions in my paycheck and my taxes as a sort of "tithing." So why would Christians be against this idea? I don't understand!
To be honest--this whole debt thing is beyond my capability of understanding. But I believe that is we had not been in the ruinous war in Iraq. . . and if there had not been tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, that we might be in a different place now. I understand from reading my history books and from some reading on my own and from what my mom and dad reported: President Clinton created a budget SURPLUS during his years and balanced the federal budget. If President Obama were given the time and the Congress, I think he could do the same thing! So don't whine to me about debt when you are going to intentionally elect an obstructionist Congress that will prevent ANYTHING from being done over the next three years!
Bottom line: I am voting next week, as I have a chance, to vote for those men and women who will work WITH President Obama, instead of against him. We are supposed to be the UNITED States, yet the political speeches, the adds on TV, and news all seem to underscore how were are divided! Wasn't in Lincoln who talked about "a house divided on itself"? Wasn't it FDR who cautioned us about fear? Wasn't it Kennedy who challenged us to look as see what WE can do for our country? What's happened to this spirit of our working together toward a common good? What's happened to the heart of both American ingenuity and generosity?
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