Caffeinated Politics

Crafting a budget (resolution) in Washington and properly funding government programs remain murky and dysfunctional. The series of ongoing fiscal cliffs and partisan brinksmanship, such as our nation is again in the midst of, is not the way to address policy needs for ongoing programs and certainly does nothing for enhancing our fiscal maturity image abroad. As we brace for what looks like a government shutdown in just days, an outcome that is simply dreadful, comes the absolute need to find a way to address the health care crisis looming in our nation. If that sounds like I am arguing on both sides of the divide, you are then aware of the place that yours truly, and I suspect many a pol and citizen alike, can be found.

In this moment of national gridlock, when the machinery of government is sputtering towards shutdown, Americans can have both a visceral disgust at the latest example of congressional dysfunction be it threats of parks closed or paychecks missed, while at the same time holding to a deep conviction that some fights are worth the cost. Especially when the stakes involve the health and dignity for many millions of our fellow citizens.

I detest this political theater, as I want our federal government to return to a budget process that is timely, process-oriented, and not aimed to make for explosions of drama and unneeded chaos. But I also am very cognizant of where our nation now finds itself. Our playing by the high-road rules and mature leadership is where the Donald Trump White House wants the Democrats to land so Republicans can continue to blast away the programs designed to help our nation’s health care needs in the federal budget. I have argued since Inauguration Day that silence in the face of cruelty is complicity. We must not go there.

Republican lawmakers cut Medicare, Medicaid, and federal research funding for diseases so to pay for the most unfair and inexplicable tax cut giveaway to the richest in the nation. It is a moral rupture of our values that simply must not be allowed to stand. I am not sure what has caused the inability to reason and obvious misunderstanding from much of the majority party concerning the programs they voted to decimate. The programs that are the very ones that are lifelines to a wide swath of Americans. Many millions of their own constituents.

So, when it comes down to my foundation of abhorring a government shutdown on the one hand, or the humanity needed of supporting program dollars to stem and prevent medical neglect and suffering, there is no doubt where I land. I strongly suspect a majority of my fellow citizens feel the same.

I do not take my position lightly. Not for a moment. What kind of economic stability are we preserving if a federal shutdown is averted at the expense of the middle class and the most vulnerable in our country? If the price of keeping the lights on is acquiescing to policies that gut healthcare and that shatter the federal safeguards that protect the people, then the shutdown becomes far more than a partisan protest. The shutdown then takes on the role of a national reckoning about what the people cannot and will not abide.

It is not intellectual gymnastics that allows you and me to utterly loathe the mess of a shutdown and still believe our common objective of protecting healthcare is non-negotiable. You and I can resent the chaos that comes with a shutdown while in the same breath steadfastly insisting the soundness of our health care services are not for sale. One of the reasons I am a lifelong liberal is knowing that governance can be functional at the same time that it is purposeful and grounded in compassion.

I am strongly wedded to the knowledge in this country that we must care for one another. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when it’s costly. Even when the national park is closed. The Republican assault on healthcare, their unprecedented attacks on medical research, the absurd suppression of vaccine availability, and the promised closures of hospitals, nursing homes and community-based health clinics is not what this nation can abide.

If we need to deal with a federal shutdown to focus the attention of the nation to the healthcare needs of our larger community that is the path we must take.