There are certain stories that guide us, year after year, lighthouses, like the Cape Blanco Lighthouse pictured above, a government built structure, still operating on Cape Blanco, to keep ships from crashing on the rocky shores.
If you have been following the news, you've caught the new Scrooge Story: Let the Rich keep their tax cuts, or nothing will happen in Congress.
Today, on Hardball with Chris Matthew, Matt Kimble from Freedomwors said: "...unemployement benefit is junk... The trouble with unemployment and economic stagnation... is a spending problem..."
I'm just a pensioner. Both my pension and my Medicare benefits were part of my wage package through a lifetime of work. Talking about eleminating these programs because they are costly, is an ethical and moral problem, the one Mister Scrooge had to deal with.
To balance the budget on the backs of seniors and people on unemployement is an ethical problem, when Wall Street and millionaires insist on keeping their bonuses and being rescued when things go bump in the night.
Greed is governing right now!
A lighthouse only for those with big yachts!
"Less Government" is a code phrase for get rid of all programs, all regs, all things that make good govenment, including unemployement benefits. It's a code phrase for, every man to himself. Women and children and unemployed cost are rocking the boat, will make us drown.
What is a nation to do?
Let's keep the Lighthouses, the regulations, the programs that give people a lifeline. In a Democracy, we have a moral imperative to save everyone in a storm, and to give education and protections to prevent crashing on the shores.
Then, let's have a conversation on how to become the great nation we think we are, the nation that shone like a lighthouse to the world at war, to the world in poverty. Let's have our conversation on how we can afford to do all the things we need to do, in a smart way, in a fair way, even in a humane way, Right now is the time to start. Right now, for Christmas.
