I’m sure you’ve heard it before: “If we cut federal spending, sick kids will die, old people will die, sick old people will die, and – what the heck – all beloved house pets will be cooked and served up on silver platters to feed The Rich.”
The charge is as old as the hills: Conservatives are heartless. We (apparently) have no compassion. We do not care for poor people. We only have eyes for rich people. We are beholden to the Almighty Dollar, and hold the less fortunate in contempt.
We’ve heard it as recently as President Obama’s speech last week in response to Representative Paul Ryan’s hard-core debt-cutting budget proposal. In the absence of any alternative suggestions, the President insisted that this heartless budget pitted “kids with Autism” against “billionaires”.
If I could be Political King for a Day… if I had ONE game-changing message to throw into the national political discourse… it would be to force America to acknowledge that there is an equally valid charge to be hurled at my Leftist counterparts.
Maybe Conservatives are heartless about today’s poor. But, the Liberals are heartless about TOMORROW’s poor.
Even if I am the monster my ideological opponents wish me to be… even if I do shine the billionaire’s shoes with the hair of the homeless… we can’t ignore one biting fact: America is spending trillions of dollars she does not have.
And, if WE (that is, our current generation) don’t have the money to pay for all these programs… then who will pay that bill?
Answer: Our children.
And, if we are neglecting poor people right now... ($1.4 TRILLION per year in Medicare/Medicaid/Social-Security expenses, untold fortunes in state and local spendings, neglecting?)… what is going to happen to all of these programs when that $13TRILLION in debt hits the fan?
When our nation finally begins to grapple with that debt, what is going to happen to all the poor people THEN? Huh?
Like many people, my wife and I give a lot of money to our local church. That money goes to help a lot of programs, and a lot of people. But, I can most certainly envision a time when our finances might hit the fan… and, what will happen to our giving practices once that happens? Will we continue to give at our current levels? I can assure you we won’t. If I lose my job, or we have to start paying for unexpected medical expenses, or we see an impending move with all its incumbent expenses, or one of our parents comes to live with us, I can assure you our contributions to charity will be negatively impacted.
Why would the same thing NOT happen at the national level? When some future generation of Americans decides to get serious about tackling our debt, how can we possibly think that they will be able to continue funding ALL of their benevolent programs at then-current levels?
So… the next time you hear a Liberal talk about me and my fellow mean ol’ Conservatives, be sure to ask them why they’re trying to crush future poor people under the weight of all this unfunded federal debt.
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