With that sweeping concession made, let me ask a question. Barack Obama has raised $450,000,000 this election cycle; he has spent nearly $400,000,000 thus far. I ask without flinching: Why isn't this money going to the poor?
What follows in part comes from an argument I presented in a lengthy series of essays published under the title of "Making Poverty History."
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In 2005, I wrote the following, and it is crucial to my own polemic against my voting for a Democrat this year:
I want to make one point about someone who remains arguably the figurehead of the Democratic Party, John Kerry. Mr. Kerry, in case you have forgotten, is a member of that class aptly called the super-rich, with he and his wife, Tereza Heinz, worth at least $500,000,000. (That Ms. Heinz' fortunes came through her previous marriage to a Republican is not really germane to this point, though it is curious in a gossipy sort of way.) And we will recall with ease that Mr. Kerry stood for political values that included rolling back the Bush tax cuts. To Mr. Kerry, the tax cuts did nothing to benefit the poor or middle classes.…I hope you get the point: John Kerry ran a presidential campaign in 2004 which was critical of the Bush tax cuts and opposed to gross cuts in government spending. But privately, when offered a chance to actually increase government coffers, Mr. Kerry abstained during tax time. It is really a rather telling fact.
I am wondering if you knew that Mr. Kerry and his wife chose, in 2004, NOT to pay Massachusetts state income tax at an optional higher rate offered by the tax commission for those with high incomes. That this made a few New England papers, and the talkshow circuit in Boston, is about the broadest audience this tid-bit reached. Mr. Kerry and his wife, no doubt with the shrewdest of accountants at hand, chose to keep some of their earnings to themselves, choosing not to give extra money to the state coffers, money which could have been used, in part, to fund programs for the needy or less fortunate.
Mr. Kerry's actions, or inactions, are applauded by me as actions well within his right. I am glad that he was free to do with his money as he saw fit. But I can't help but note a bit of irony here: The super-rich gave themselves a tax cut though they appear to oppose cuts in government funding.
Readers attentive to the political hankerings over the last several election cycles know that universal health care coverage is a key item in the Democrat Party's legislative agenda. Hillary Clinton attempted to develop a health care plan during her husband's presidency; John Edwards was quite passionate about health care reform during this latest election cycle. It is a wildly popular idea: just last month, New York Times columnist and Democrat celebrant Paul Krugman waxed on giddily about the prospects of universal health coverage in the United States.
But let me make this point, one which to some will seem utterly vapid: the Democrats have themselves done nothing to provide health insurance for the uninsured, or coverage for the uncovered. And they have had every chance to; like John Kerry at tax time, Democrats have chosen to keep their money to themselves. Let me explain.
After John Kerry lost his presidential bid in 2004, there was much harumphing about the callousness of America, particularly toward the 40 million souls who had no health insurance.
In the wake of Kerry's failed bid, I wrote the following:
Please recall with me two things from the 2004 election. First, that the Democratic Party ran on a platform that included federally-funded health care for the 40 million Americans without any health insurance. That these 40,000,000 include 18-28 year-olds who generally don't even think about health care; the very rich who choose to finance their own medical care; and those folks who simply do not want such insurance is interesting to note: the 40,000,000 is not necessarily replete with ONLY poor people.Let me ask: What has prevented the 59 MILLION Americans who voted for John Kerry from pooling their own resources together in a brilliant 501(c) and creating a health insurance program for the needy? What has hindered the 59 MILLION Americans who believe health insurance is of primary importance from creating even a temporary and private fund for health care? Surely the 59 MILLION Americans who voted for John Kerry and universal coverage could have donated at least $1 each; but knowing that most if not at all could donate $10 apiece, why did no one see that a $590 million private program to insure 40 million folks meant that there was a safety net of more than $10 million per uninsured person? Where is the Democratic Party compassion I so often hear touted?
Second, recall that John Kerry received over 59,000,000 votes by Americans who shared his views about health care for "the poorest among us." Recall too, that as a result of Mr. Kerry's defeat by George W. Bush in that election, many Democratic leaders and pundits rebuked the pro-Bush electorate for being uncompassionate, "un-Christian", and uncaring vis-รก-vis the less fortunate. There was from coast-to-coast, from C-Span to lowly newspaper editorial pages, an outrage and disgust at the moral callousness of the Bush administration and the Republicans' cold-heartedness. Many expressed that they wanted to leave America, as it was no longer a kind or generous place: America had closed its doors on the poor. (New Hampshire bumper sticker: Bush/Cheney '04 - Leave No Billionaire Behind.)
Let us note that Barack Obama and his party are poised to raise and spend MORE than half a BILLION dollars on getting him elected, but have not raised a single penny in the last 15 years to help care for those without health insurance. Apparently the desperate needs of so many vulnerable souls is not all that desperate. No, no. The Democrats are only compassionate when they can, by FORCE OF LAW, have every wage earner pay for health care for others. The urgency is not particularly urgent; but what is urgent is grabbing by legislative fiat the wealth of others so the "desperate needy," that group ignored by Democrats during the off-season, can be treated "justly" and "compassionately."
This is one reason why I am not a Democrat. That the Democratic Party can raise and spend an obscene amount of money merely to promote the PROMISE of health care, without ANY guarantees that such promises will be kept or the election even secured, proves two damning things: The party does not REALLY believe in health care, or else it would offer it via private funding, which it could easily do (even if only temporary); and the party is really only interested in one truly urgent need -- gaining power. The uninsured poor? the vulnerable? the desperate? Well, they will just have to wait until the Democrats win the White House and procure sovereignty over the Congress. In the meantime, those who do not have what they so desperately need can comfort and console themselves by blaming those callous Republicans.
As an aside, how odd to see the "compassionate" squirm when they learn that conservatives actually give more to charity than liberals.
Food for thought, or not.
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