On Friday, we shared a video of Colorado’s U.S. Senator Michael Bennet blaming the “Trickle-Down Theory” of economic development for “why our politics are so messed up”… and for “the disgraceful and immoral level of childhood poverty we have in this country…”
He predicted — rhetorically — that when the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 arrived on the Senate floor on Thursday, “we’ll actually all vote for it.”
That didn’t happen. The legislation needed 60 Senators to vote in favor of moving the bill forward, and received only 48 votes, with 46 in opposition.
In the House of Representatives, overwhelming support for the bill had been ‘non-partisan’ resulting in a 357 to 70 approval vote…
…In the Senate, the vote had been, basically, along party lines. From The New York Times article by reporter Andrew Duehren, on Friday:
Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, brought it up for a procedural vote on Thursday. The vote failed 48 to 44, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Three Republicans joined Democrats in favor of the bill, while two independents who caucus with Democrats — Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — opposed it. Mr. Schumer also ultimately voted against the bill, a decision that allows him to potentially bring it back up for another vote.
With the procedural vote, top Democrats saw an opportunity to score political points in an election year. They hammered Republicans for opposing changes that would give more low-income families access to the child tax credit and make it more valuable for parents with multiple children.
Do Republicans care about children?
Do Democrats care about children?
Or is this mainly maneuvering in an endless struggle for political power? With children as the pawns?
In November 1947 Winston Churchill delivered a speech to the House of Commons, and made a memorable remark about democracy.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…
This was not an original thought. As Churchill noted, this “has been said” previously by other commentators. A similar idea was put forward, for example, in 1919 by author Robert Briffault in his book, “The Making Of Humanity.”
Democracy is the worst form of government. It is the most inefficient, the most clumsy, the most impractical. No machinery has yet been contrived to carry out in any but the most farcical manner its principles. It reduces wisdom to impotence and secures the triumph of folly, ignorance, clap-trap and demagogy…
But there is something even more important than efficiency and expediency: justice. And democracy is the only social order that is admissible, because it is the only one consistent with justice.
This may be an appropriate description of our federal government in 2024. The triumph of folly, ignorance, clap-trap and demagogy.
How about ‘justice’?
I suspect there are very few Americans who truly want to see millions of the nation’s children living in poverty. If $33 billion dollars could actually lift a half million of children out of poverty, as claimed by Senator Michael Bennet, what exactly are the reasons to vote against that expenditure?
Is it the dollar amount that makes people hesitate?
Do we have other uses for the money?
The most recent National Defense Authorization Act assigned $841.4 billion in funding for the Defense Department. The request for next year is $850 billion. This level of funding — which is three times the amount China spends on its military, and ten times the amount spent by India or Russia — allows the U.S. to pursue its chosen role as “Policeman of the World”.
In his recent humor article, Daily Post columnist Louis Cannon noted that NASA will, by next year, have spent $100 billion on the Artemis Project, preparing to send two people to the Moon within the next decade.
Our country has plenty of money — enough to share. This year, we’re providing $13 billion in military aid to Israel, for example.
But we can’t agree to lift half a million children out of poverty?
I believe Americans, in general, value children. In 2018, the Archuleta School District went to the local voters, asking for a property tax increase, to enhance teacher salaries and improve building security. The community’s taxpayers stepped up to approve that tax increase taxes, with nearly 2-to-1 voter approval. In 2023, we voted to make that higher tax amount permanent, by a 3-to-1 margin.
These were exercises in ‘direct democracy’. The voters themselves made the decisions. No legislators were involved in approving the tax increase; we did it entirely on our own.
An exercise in justice?
Robert Briffault claimed that only a democratic form of government is “consistent with justice”. But he also noted that a democracy is “the most inefficient, the most clumsy, the most impractical.”
Senator Bennet didn’t use that word — “justice” — in his five-minute address to his Senate colleagues last week. But he could have. Obviously, he is not afraid of appearing clumsy and impractical, when speaking on behalf of the nation’s most impoverished children.
So let’s talk about justice… because it means different things in different contexts…