Folks who are following the news in Colorado probably heard that US President Joe Biden stopped by for a visit this week. Kind of a special deal. Presidents don’t visit Colorado every week. They should, but they don’t.
Michael Bennet would have liked to welcome the President personally, but the Senator was busy in Washington. But he emailed out this message.
“I am pleased to welcome President Biden back to Colorado. There is no better place for the President to outline a clear vision for how his administration plans to build back better — not just from the pandemic, but from 50 years of under-investment in our nation…
“I would like nothing more than to personally welcome the President to Colorado, but I’m in Washington working to ensure the Build Back Better budget extends the expanded Child Tax Credit, urgently addresses the threat of climate change, makes significant investments in our forests and watersheds, and creates millions of good-paying jobs across the Mountain West…”
Back in 2016, Donald Trump was elected while wearing a hat that said, “Make America Great Again.” That’s not exactly equivalent to “Build Back Better” — nor is it as cleverly alliterative — but maybe it’s sending the same kind of message?
That something is wrong, and needs fixing? My ex-wife Darlene used to insinuate the same general idea, back when we were married. She was especially annoyed by the dripping faucet in the upstairs bathroom, which went unaddressed for probably four years.
Drip… drip… drip.
It didn’t really bother me, but it annoyed Darlene for some reason.
But the thing that really needed fixing was me. Or so she implied. She never really said, outright: “Louis, you are broken and need to be fixed.” (“Fixed” in the sense of “repaired”.) It was always just an insinuation.
But now we’ve had two presidents in a row come right out and tell us that our country is seriously broken and requires a change of direction, to either “Build Back Better” or “Become Great Again.”
“Better” than what? “Greater” than what?
I thought we were doing pretty good. Except for the whole pandemic thing, which wasn’t exactly our fault.
The main thing, though, is what doesn’t get said by these presidents.
What doesn’t get said is, ‘America’ is a massive chunk of partially landscaped property, including some rivers and a few wild animals, and cars, over which we have dominion. But ‘America’ is also 330 million people who have made, in Senator Bennet’s words, “significant investments in our forests and watersheds.”
(I feel a little bit silly to be discussing this, because I’ve never actually made a significant investment in our forests and water sheds. I did, however, invest in Kodak in 2009. They went belly-up in 2012… so maybe it is a good thing I haven’t invested in forests and water sheds.)
My question is, which ‘America’ do we need to Build Back Better? I assume it’s not the forests and water sheds, because they seem… kind of like natural features that we didn’t build in the first place? I think Mother Nature handled that part of the construction project pretty well. And I would include the wild animals in the same category. No one in their right mind could imagine making ‘America’ — the massive chuck of partially landscaped property — better. It’s too big to tackle.
So what the presidents are talking about us. The people. Making us better.
They’re telling us, we’re not so great as we think we are, and we need to get off our butts and fix all the upstairs faucets we’ve been ignoring. Like, it’s been 10,000 miles since the last oil change. No one has cleaned the refrigerator since at least Christmas.
That’s why I’m glad Senator Bennet brought up the “millions of good-paying jobs across the Mountain West…” idea. If we’re going to Make America Great and Build Back Better, we’re going to need good-paying jobs.
Not just any jobs. Good-paying jobs. You don’t build back a less-than-great nation on a diet of beans and rice.
And we want millions of them. Pay no attention to the fact that no one seems to want the jobs we already have. (Except, of course, maybe the ones that are ‘good-paying’. Maybe.)
And thanks, too, for the expanded Child Tax Credit. I don’t have kids, myself, but some of my best friends do, and I think everyone is going to have to chip in to fix this broken mess.
Or else, we’re gonna be listening to the drip… drip… drip… all night long.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.