“This country deserves better leadership. This country deserves somebody in the White House who has had some contact with the vast majority of Americans who are struggling today—I don’t just mean the unemployed, and I don’t just mean the poor.”
Our Quote of the Week asserts that the country needs political leaders who operate in the people’s best interests. As the US deals with a government shutdown that leaves four million employees without pay, residents across the country without services, and may result in up to 750,000 layoffs, we must ask ourselves: who is benefiting from this political stand-off?
This week’s quote comes from Sargent Shriver’s Statement about Public Job Creation, a speech he gave in Boston towards the end of his campaign to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 1976. His criticism of then-President Gerald Ford sounds eerily familiar:
"[The president] only knows how to say ‘no’. President ‘No’.
- No, to education.
- No, to health care for all Americans.
- No, to older Americans.
- No, to school lunches.
- No, to jobs for Americans who want to work.
- No, to America’s future.”
Almost 50 years later, we are still hearing “no” from the president and from his party, who hold the majority in the House and Senate. With Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies about to expire and Medicaid cuts about to take effect, this government has refused to negotiate on federal funding and has chosen to shut down the government. The ramifications of this impasse are startling. The congressional funding cuts would make health care inaccessible for millions of poeple, and the White House’s threat to cut 750,000 federal jobs, using the shutdown as an excuse, would wreak havoc in households across the country.
Looking for a summary of the causes and effects of the shutdown? We like this summary from ABC news.
May we reject leaders who work for the accumulation of power and for the interests of the few, and may we work together to create a government that is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
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