From the 1972 movie, “The Candidate”
Some stories are timeless and resonate hundreds of years later. But why? Is it because the “human condition” doesn’t change, or humans are incapable of real change, or people are just too lazy to break from their patterns, no matter how destructive? For a more optimistic perspective, perhaps these stories tap into universal emotions like love, greed, hate, compassion, and that’s why they resonate through generations. Or maybe it’s both.
If you listen to the words in the fictitious candidate’s speech above (Robert Redford as Bill McKay, in one of the great political movie satires, “The Candidate”), you’ll notice that we’re talking about and fighting about these exact issues today: race, poverty, health care, affordable housing, and environmental issues.
It’s not that our government, prodded by activists, hasn’t tried to solve these persistent problems and it’s not because they haven’t tried hard enough, but it may be because what amounts to equality issues, have never been a priority for our country. Plus, our elected officials have nearly always used these issues to divide us, distract us, and play us off against one another, so these problems, which should no longer exist in a modern, supposedly sophisticated society, continue to plague our country and relegate millions of our citizens to a bare existence.
Here’s an example from just a few days ago that sheds light on our country’s priorities:
Senator Bernie Sanders has vowed not to vote in favor of the $778 billion defense spending bill currently before the Senate because he believes “we need to get our priorities right.”
"The Senate has spent month after month discussing the Build Back Better Act and whether we can afford to protect the children, the elderly, the sick, the poor and the future of our planet. As a nation, we need to get our priorities right. I will vote ‘NO’ on the National Defense Authorization Act," Sanders said in a statement.
The problem is that this defense spending bill will pass quickly with bi-partisan support and without the need for Senator Sander’s vote. Sanders correctly points out that even though we are no longer at war, the annual defense budget has increased by $37 billion since former President Trump’s 2020 defense budget and is $25 billion more than President Biden even proposed for this coming year.
It is ironic that none of the Republicans or Democrats grousing about the increasing debt and national deficit, that may or may not result from passage of the paired down “Reconciliation Bill”, and particularly Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrats holding up this bill until they receive a more detailed cost analysis, are worried about what the defense spending bill will cost or what it might add to our nation’s debt.
But maybe they should: according to an article in TruthOut, “The likely passage of the bill comes at a time when Congress is negotiating a social spending bill that would cost $1.75 trillion over ten years — or about a fifth of the amount in spending over one year that the current defense bill proposes.”
Just to make sure we all understand, the proposed $1.7 trillion social spending bill is the total cost spread out over ten years— it’s not an annual spending bill like the Defense Budget.
This is a timely and classic example of our country’s out-of-whack priorities. Our elected officials sing the praises of negotiation, but what about directly negotiating our country’s priorities? I’m no pacifist, and of course, agree that we need a defense budget, but don’t we need to finally prioritize government spending to temper inequality, help heal the racial divide, put a decent roof over our poorest citizens’ heads, many of whom are veterans, and turn around the climate crisis?
Another flashback to a Republican president and 5 Star General, who seemed to believe we needed to rearrange our nation’s priorities:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
How about you? Do you think our elected officials should rearrange our nation’s priorities? Let your voice be heard in the comments below!
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