Regardless of who secures the Republican party presidential nomination, one overriding compulsion the Grand Old Party has is to hold back the sands of time. The election of 2012, according to Thomas Byrne Edsall, an academic and 25-year political reporter for The Washington Post, might well be the last chance for conservatives before demographic changes (more Latinos and Asians, more younger voters) deny them the opportunity to win national elections.
Speaking on NPR’s Leonard Lopate radio show last week, Edsall said if Republicans win the White House and seize both houses of Congress they will work feverishly to reverse the “welfare state” first conceptualized 80 years ago by FDR to lift the nation out of the Depression and to provide safety nets to assure we wouldn’t be so stricken again. Even if Democrats win four years later in 2016, it would take at least a decade to re-enact social welfare legislation, Edsall believes, because the rules of the Senate now require a super-majority to effectively pass any new laws.
It’s a harsh reality, or forecast, especially given the need so many in our country have for a helping hand. Republicans would have you believe private institutions and individuals, not government, can and should take care of the needy. Trouble is, as the economy sours, private contributions dry up. Last week, Crain’s New York Business reported, “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its charitable contributions to its donor-advised fund by more than three-quarters to $78 million last year, amid a drop in profits. The smaller donation to Goldman Sachs Gives represents the second reduction in three years. The fund is solely supported by the bank and its partners. In 2010, $320 million was allocated for the charitable fund, down from $500 million in 2009.”
Hard really to blame Goldman Sachs and its partners. After all, the firm’s revenues dropped 26% last year vs. a year earlier. Compensation and benefits were trimmed by 21% to just $12.2 billion. Hey, you know how hard it is to get by on just $12.2 billion? Try it, some time. It’s not unlike Mitt Romney saying last week “not very much” of his multi-million dollar income came from speaker fees in 2010. Only about $374,327.62. A mere pittance. Try living on that, America!
Here’s an interesting bit of information from the Internal Revenue Service (courtesy of a Colbert Report episode last week). According to the IRS, for the year 2009, the top 1% of Americans reported adjusted gross income (AGI) of $343,927.
For the top 5%, AGI was $154,643;
for the top 10%, $112,124;
for the top 25%, $66,193;
for the top 50%, $32,396.
Half of the country earned less than $32,396 in 2009.
Sending a Message: Eartha Kitt chose a White House luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson to express her outrage over the Vietnam War. Tim Thomas, the Most Valuable Player of the reigning National Hockey League champion Boston Bruins, registered a personal political protest today against President Barack Obama by refusing to attend a White House ceremony honoring his team’s Stanley Cup victory last year.
When I first heard this story during Michael Kay’s radio show on ESPN, I agreed with Kay that Thomas, a Michigan native and a conservative Republican, was wrong, that his actions failed to show proper respect for the office of the presidency. Kay, the long-time voice of the NY Yankees, said some Yankees wanted to skip White House ceremonies with President Bill Clinton (baseball players are predominantly conservative, he explained). Owner George Steinbrenner, however, required their attendance because he felt it was a team honor bestowed by the White House, not an individual president.
The Bruins opted not to require Thomas’ attendance. I don’t agree with what Thomas did, but it seems to me he was perfectly within his rights. Athletes and other public figures do not give up their right to express their opinions, and what could be more to the point than snubbing the president?
Is Alito for Real? Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. is part of the conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court, the group that always seems to be looking to the Founders of the Republic for their intent before deciding a case. But in a decision Monday in which the court ruled police could not place a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car without a warrant, Alito chastised several of his colleagues “for trying to apply 18th-century legal concepts to 21st-century technologies. What should matter, he said, is the contemporary reasonable expectation of privacy,” according to The NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/police-use-of-gps-is-ruled-unconstitutional.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&nl=afternoonupdate&emc=aua2).
Wow. Is this the first indication Alito has finally recognized all truths, and constitutional rights, do not reside with the Founders? I surely hope so.
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Amalekites Among Us
Though posted today, I was inspired to write this blog entry while attending Sabbath services yesterday, the day before the Jewish holiday of Purim which commemorates victory over Haman, an evil minister of ancient Persia who sought to annihilate the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. Haman is thought to have descended from the nomadic tribe of Amalek, a people reviled for their unprovoked attack on the vulnerable rear phalanx of the Israelites as they made their way through the desert to the promised land after the exodus from Egypt.
Each year, the Saturday before Purim is called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. Congregations read a Torah portion commanding Jews to remember Amalek’s treachery: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore...you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.” (Exodus 25: 17-19)
Listening to one of our temple members expound on the need to safeguard the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society against both outside attackers and complacency from the more strong and fortunate, I couldn’t help but think we have in our country present-day Amalekites. They’re people who would turn their backs on the infirm, the uninsured, the jobless, the dispossessed, the homeless, the hungry, the needy, in short, the less fortunate. My first instinct was to label all of them Republicans. But that would be too easy, and, in truth, not inclusive enough.
Disregard for one’s fellow human knows no ideological bound. No religious border. No political persuasion.
Who has not been rightly moved by the tragic pictures from Japan, or from Haiti, or New Zealand? In an instant, the forces of nature overturned societies. Americans opened their hearts and wallets to the victims.
But why does it take a natural disaster to make us emote and care for the downtrodden, either here or abroad? How is it the citizens of the richest country on earth tolerate poverty in our midst? How is it some don’t accept it is not Christian charity to deny anyone a living wage, that it is within our depths of compassion and resources to provide sustenance and shelter for the needy? I’m not advocating a welfare state of handouts. Anyone receiving public assistance should be required to compensate the government for it by working on community projects or the like.
By virtue of luck, we were either born or emigrated here. We enjoy a standard of living married to institutional values second to none. Judeo-Christian precepts underpin our national psyche. Those precepts are imbued with concern and care for the poor and disadvantaged. They cherish learning and tolerance. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible knows it is not a libertarian treatise. There are codes of law that define proper personal and public behavior, by the individual and state.
Yet, while so many of our citizens espouse religious values, they fail to live by them. We have allowed our educational system to backslide. Infant mortality has risen. Some promote the right to life for the unborn but turn their backs on public support of the young once they breathe their first. Health care increasingly is reserved for the elite, and the battle is joined when proponents advance the idea of coverage for all. Driven by the pursuit of profits, corporations shut down domestic employment in favor of foreign workers, leaving individuals and communities forsaken.
Through the centuries Jews cast anyone who sought their destruction as an Amalekite. Today, an Amalekite has a more universal inhumanity. Our hope, as one biblical commentator put it, “is to blot out from the human heart the cruel Amalek spirit.”
Each year, the Saturday before Purim is called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. Congregations read a Torah portion commanding Jews to remember Amalek’s treachery: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore...you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.” (Exodus 25: 17-19)
Listening to one of our temple members expound on the need to safeguard the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society against both outside attackers and complacency from the more strong and fortunate, I couldn’t help but think we have in our country present-day Amalekites. They’re people who would turn their backs on the infirm, the uninsured, the jobless, the dispossessed, the homeless, the hungry, the needy, in short, the less fortunate. My first instinct was to label all of them Republicans. But that would be too easy, and, in truth, not inclusive enough.
Disregard for one’s fellow human knows no ideological bound. No religious border. No political persuasion.
Who has not been rightly moved by the tragic pictures from Japan, or from Haiti, or New Zealand? In an instant, the forces of nature overturned societies. Americans opened their hearts and wallets to the victims.
But why does it take a natural disaster to make us emote and care for the downtrodden, either here or abroad? How is it the citizens of the richest country on earth tolerate poverty in our midst? How is it some don’t accept it is not Christian charity to deny anyone a living wage, that it is within our depths of compassion and resources to provide sustenance and shelter for the needy? I’m not advocating a welfare state of handouts. Anyone receiving public assistance should be required to compensate the government for it by working on community projects or the like.
By virtue of luck, we were either born or emigrated here. We enjoy a standard of living married to institutional values second to none. Judeo-Christian precepts underpin our national psyche. Those precepts are imbued with concern and care for the poor and disadvantaged. They cherish learning and tolerance. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible knows it is not a libertarian treatise. There are codes of law that define proper personal and public behavior, by the individual and state.
Yet, while so many of our citizens espouse religious values, they fail to live by them. We have allowed our educational system to backslide. Infant mortality has risen. Some promote the right to life for the unborn but turn their backs on public support of the young once they breathe their first. Health care increasingly is reserved for the elite, and the battle is joined when proponents advance the idea of coverage for all. Driven by the pursuit of profits, corporations shut down domestic employment in favor of foreign workers, leaving individuals and communities forsaken.
Through the centuries Jews cast anyone who sought their destruction as an Amalekite. Today, an Amalekite has a more universal inhumanity. Our hope, as one biblical commentator put it, “is to blot out from the human heart the cruel Amalek spirit.”
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