Over this long holiday weekend, children will be gathering in towns and cities around the country ooh-ing and aah-ing over fireworks, marching in parades, proud of their heritage and proudly waving the American flag. Most of them still believe in the promise of America—a promise reflected in so many of the values and ideals that underlie the founding documents of our nation and the Pledge of Allegiance so many of us learned as children and repeated each morning in school.
But today the promise of America’s Pledge of Allegiance is in jeopardy for millions of our nation’s children, and right now many of our elected officials are letting another pledge take precedence. Americans for Tax Reform, the organization headed by Grover Norquist, created the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” twenty-five years ago and now “asks every candidate for elected office on the state and federal level to make a written commitment to their constituents to ‘oppose and vote against tax increases.’” Many of our current Congressional leaders have signed onto this pledge and now seem to believe it is the only pledge they need to honor. They are so determined and dug in they are willing to default on our country’s obligations in order to stick to it—and their loyalty to this no-new-taxes pledge is putting millions of our children and entire nation at risk.
But what about those elected leaders’ Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands, and to the promise of liberty and justice for all? Does that pledge still matter? And if so, how can there be liberty for all our children when our public education system is condemning so many of them to failure—unable to read and do math proficiently at grade level in this globalizing competitive world? How can there be justice for our nation’s youngest citizens when they are the poorest age group in rich America and have gotten poorer—15.5 million in 2009? How could some Congressional leaders consider dismantling the health care program so many of our poor children rely on and propose cuts in federal nutrition programs at a time when hunger and food insecurity are rampant and growing? And how can there be justice for our children if the millionaires and billionaires and the richest corporations don’t pay anywhere near their fair share and have reaped hugely disparate benefits from Bush-era tax cuts while the nation is mired in debt contributing to the widest gap between rich and poor ever recorded? How can any member of Congress even consider balancing the budget on the backs of our babies and children who are losing their homes and all sense of security about tomorrow?
President Obama made some of the choices very plain in his recent press conference. As he put it: “If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we have to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship… Before we ask our seniors to pay more for health care, before we cut our children’s education, before we sacrifice our commitment to the research and innovation that will help create more jobs in the economy, I think it’s only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys.”
Our nation does have a huge deficit problem—but Congress has tunnel vision on the wrong one. Our most dangerous deficits are our values deficit and narrow self interest which pose the biggest threat to our future and our children’s future and the very idea of America. Our failure to invest in our children has already led to a deficit in human capital and companies are troubled by an undereducated workforce that can barely keep up with business today. If we don’t fix our education system and prepare all of our children to thrive in the global economy, America’s promise may die forever.
As we celebrate our strong nation’s independence, let us all pledge to ensure all our children a more—not less—just land. Let us demand that all our political leaders pledge not to ask children to sacrifice their hopes and health and food and education while asking for no sacrifice from powerful billionaires and corporations who have gained far more than their fair share.
Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender
Brian Rosenberg: The Most Powerful Figure in the Republican Party
Signing pledges to special interest groups is anti american when you are supposed to be governing everyone, regardless of political affiliation
I don't recall the stakes ever having been so high, and the rancor so bitter as right now. It seems as if the elected GOPers have indeed taken a pledge to devastate all of America accept the wealthy elite, which so many of them happen to be.
The notion that propping up those that need it the very least at the cost of those who need it most as a means to a vibrant economy has been proven a fallacy time and time again.
I cringe, and am deeply ashamed at the state of our education system, how it has back-slid just since I graduated from high school in 1974. Even in Detroit we had some of the finest public schools in the country.
It's too simple to just say the GOP is greedy, heartless, and only out for the wealthy. We have to examine what there is in our society that keeps voting them into power in the first place.
I hope people realize just how important the 2012 election(s) are going to be. They will chart the course of this country for at least another generation.
What are we going to allow to happen, or better yet, what are we going to do?
While I've no doubt President Oba,a will secure reelection, and we will make gains in The House and Sensate, I remain deepl concerned and afraid for America.
We must have strong laws, strong law enforcers, and strong cell bars.
The rich aren't going to give back our money if we just ask - it's time we take it back - we, the MAJORITY with the power of OUR GOVERNMENT behind us.
The reality hoever is the fact that the only class warfare being waged is that of the wealthy GOPers against what is left of the middle class, and bty extension the growing lower class. Let's not even bring our seniors into the discussion.
Since you wnt to talk about the state of how our economy has played out since WWII you would be well advised to take not of the fact that all of the prosperity that we [had] enjoyed, and indeed shared globally was created by democratic initiatives. Heard of The Marshall Plan?
Caring for one another, seeing to it that our childrenreceive an education that will enable them to compete globally, as well as here at home, and seeing to it that our seniors don't have to cut their pills in half to stretch out their prescriptions isn't a granny state.
it's called a modern enlightened society.
Fast Forward; The family initiates a medical malpractice suit for obvious reasons. Only to find out that they live in a state which has medical malpractice lawsuit caps on the damages.
Having a professional who claims to have your best interest in mind, but is unwilling to use the complete cadre of tools and strategies available to them when it comes to life and death situations will at sometime create an indefensible position one where the outcome has lead to a death of a live person regardless of their status in life.
Should this professional be allowed to continue to practice a profession that deals in the very real potential situations of life and death of their clients in view of their refusal to use all of the strategies available to them?
IMHO it would appear to me that their credentials should be revoked and they should be run out of town. But that is just me.
Back in the Sixties about 20 percent of children lived in poverty, as Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America reported. That percentage rose when the Reaganites came to power claiming America was a "welfare state," scapegoating "welfare cheats" and cutting human services.
Then the 1996 "Welfare Reform" enacted by a Republican Congress (and expediently approved by Clinton) made things even worse .. and then along came Bush and made things even more terrible for the working poor and the poor.
While the rich have gotten incredibly richer, the working poor and the poor have gotten very much poorer, and the middle class has shrunk and more and more people have fallen into the working poor population, and into poverty.
Most people don't know it, but even before 2008 usually between 73 and 79 percent of the tens of millions of children in poverty lived in families with at least one parent working full time! And now it's probably more.
Now read Poverty: America's Hidden Shame, at http://messenger2.cjcmp.org/poverty.html
We are stuck in a quagmire, unable to do anything to deal with our problems, much less continue as a leading progressive nation. Our creativity and ingenuity are stymied because those require flexibility, adaptability and out of the box thinking. It brings to mind one of those dreams where you are trying to escape from danger and are unable to move. We are in great danger of not escaping.
It truly is a travesty. Our founders were creative, inventive people. Surely this is not what they would ever have envisioned.