Tonight's Debate: Will Our Children Fare Better than Us?

This debate underscored the central question that each of us must ask ourselves before choosing our next president: Will our children and our children's children fare better than us?

Since 2001, we have spent hundreds of billions on two wars, and that doesn't even take into account anticipated further spending requests throughout the next few years to sustain these wars. Yet tonight, Senator McCain called for a federal budget freeze that would literally leave millions of children and families out in the cold.

In America today 13 million children are living in poverty and nearly 9 million are living without health coverage. I fear that these upside-down political priorities will be our nation's Achilles heel in our ability to compete in a global economy. If our next leader is willing to continue to spend billions on the wars but refuses to adequately fund programs designed to protect America's most vulnerable, what does that say about our nation's moral compass?

Read more reactions to the first presidential debate from HuffPost bloggers, including Nora Ephron, Bob Shrum, Madeleine Albright, Paul Reiser, Arianna Huffington, Sean Penn, Sheryl Crow, and more.

Comments

[zorazeal7]

Could someone please address todays Washington Post article regarding the silence and corruption involved in the China melamine contamination scandal. I believe it is a matter of homeland security.

[realpolitic]

Under Bush, real wages are declining and people are rapidly losing their jobs. If Bush were to continue in office another term or two, (heaven forbid), no one in America would be working at all. The country would be one giant soup kitchen.

[oldmilitant]

Did Sen McCain even MENTION the Middle Class? If so, I don't remember when. Beautiful article, Sister Marian.

[carriellbee]

We have a problem and that problem is cronyism. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

"Given crony capitalism's nature, these dishonest business practices are frequently (yet not exclusively) found in societies with ineffective legal systems. Resultantly, there is an impetus upon the legislative branch of a government to ensure enforcement of the legal code capable of addressing and redressing private party manipulation of the economy by the involved businessmen and their government cronies.

The economic and social costs of cronyism are paid by society. In the form of reduced business opportunity for the majority of the population, reduced competition in the market place, inflated consumer goods prices, decreased economic performance, inefficient business investment cycles, reduced motivation in affected organizations, and the diminution of economically productive activity. A practical cost of cronyism is manifest in the bad workmanship of public and private community projects. Cronyism is self-generating, cronyism then begets a culture of cronyism. This can only be apprehended by a comprehensive, effective, and enforced legal code, and empowered government agencies who can effect prosecutions in the courts.

All appointments that are suspected of being cronyism are controversial. The appointed party may choose to either suppress disquiet or ignore it, depending upon the society's level of freedom of expression and individual personal liberty."

The wealth of the beneficiaries of cronyism in the US mostly comes directly or indirectly from military spending. Until this changes, we'll see little or no money for anything else.

[Jezreel]

Dear Sister Marian, what a pleasure to hear from you. I have admired you and respected your work for many years. Thank you for your support of Senator Obama and for dropping by to share a few precious pearls of wisdom with us this evening.

[darker]

McCain has no new ideas, just old memories and self-hero worship. That's not enough.
Millionaire McCain refuses to acknowledge the MIDDLE CLASS that's been paying the bills for the misguided IRAQ WAR and WALL ST. CORRUPTION-CRASH created by years of Republican DEREGULATION of profiteering.

I CANNOT AFFORD REPUBLICANS ANY MORE.
They're too damn expensive!
Republicans PROVED that they CAN'T GOVERN. NO MORE YEARS for corrupt Republican liars and crooks.

After too many years of REPUBLICAN HYPOCRITES and nuts,
Obama and Biden are a breath of fresh air.

[DMSmith]

McCain can't stop lying. He scares me.

His absolute and coldly clear refusal to so much as look at Obama was chilling.

He's dangerous.

[brooklyn francis]

Your argument relating the most vulnerable to our ability to compete globally misses the mark. Didn't Mr. Obama touch on education after Mr. McCain mentioned a budget freeze? Why would you bring in the global economy without mentioning education? If uninsured and poor children were left as they were but the all other children were getting all their needs met and got the best educations we could offer, we"d still be better off in the global economy. Health care keeps us alive and able to learn, but education helps make life worth living; and, it"s what will let us compete long term.

I write these words because I'm asking you to be more rigorous in this public pronouncement. The rights and needs of children are WAY to important to have any of the conservative badgers leap on any statements that seem ungrounded in rigorous logic, rather than being couched in sentiment for the needy. If you're going to talk about our place in the global economy, you'll also have to think about those middle-class-because-both-parents-work kids who come home to an empty house and end up playing video games while in other countries they structure their economy so that one parent can be at home to make sure the kids are supervised and grow and learn. We pursue capital, feeding the man and buying the junk he has to offer us, instead of looking after the needs of children. We do this at our peril.

[mebble]

Senator McCain is an old person, and old people don't care about the young or the future.

[MarkInEugene]

It's time for a breath of fresh air. I'm so tired of

War and wasting 12 billion a month on it.
Young people dying for neocon saber rattling arrogance.
Tax Cuts primarily going to the wealthy
Crumbling infrastructure
The loss of jobs and increased unemployment.
Uninspiring, inarticulate, and embarrassing Presidential speeches.
Torture, spying and the erosion of Habeas Corpus
The disrespect for science and scientific opinion.
The curtailment of stem cell research.
The erosion of the separation of church and state.
The focus on guns, god and gays instead of education, the economy and health care.
Corporate welfare; privatized gains and socialized losses.
The largest deficit in US History trashing a hard won surplus by President Clinton
Trickle down supply side lies making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

We need the sun to shine in Washington again. It's been an age of darkness in the halls of government

[knowBuddhaU]

O sister my Sister Marian, I bow in your virtual direction. It says, our course is set by nuclear-powered tin men.

[janeInCA]

Did he consult with the economists about freezing spending under the state of the current economy? Also his proposal for building nuclear power plants as alternative energy that would aggravate the global warming, drain water from rivers, create more harm to the environment. You're right, we don't leave to our children and grand children with debts and nuclear dangers.

[dadw5boys]

Only if Obama wins !

[sadiehawkins]

Well, Senator Mc Cain has no idea how anyone else beside the rich live. He has no concern for children, healthcare, women's rights, and pretends to care about veterans, he is also one of the Keating five.

[drsmc41]

Great questions.

I hope that the candidates become more specific and actually say something about children, people with disabilities, poverty, etc. Thanks for your article.