A More Perfect Union

The Preamble to the United States Constitution reads as follows.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Some days it seems fair to wonder how we are doing accomplishing the task set forth in that Preamble. Have we established Justice?

Are our citizens more likely to participate in criminal behavior than those of every other country on Earth? Are we more criminally minded or do we just lock folks up because we find them annoying? Their drug abuse or mental health problems mean they shouldn't live among the rest of us. Rather than provide treatment for substance abuse, counseling or care for mental health issues we lock them away in prison. I started with something I knew. Working 20+ years in the Illinois Department of Corrections you deal with lots of different people. Did all of them need to be there? Was incarceration the best answer for the problems these folks created in free society? Not the best answer in many cases but when you have the cell space available you are going to find some reason to put someone in there. I would like to think that IF mental health facilities and drug treatment facilities were available those who would benefit from treatment would be sent there instead.

We are admonished to provide for the common defense.
The chart above makes it clear that we spend more on national defense than the next 15 countries combined. Can we be safe with less of our tax dollars spent on national defense. What this chart also does not disclose is the additional billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of care for our wounded veterans and their families and to the widows and orphans of those killed in service to their country. I do not in any way begrudge those payments to veterans but I do question why they were sent into harms way.

Promote the general Welfare. In a sense the issue is not welfare as we know it today but it is the care of our fellow citizens. Are we better off as a nation when our citizens have access to health care? Citizens in every other industrialized country on Earth have access to health care. They are not concerned with bankruptcy because they get sick and must be hospitalized. It is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States. Since we all bear the cost of those bankruptcies why is provided health care and insurance coverage to every American such an issue?

We spend more on healthcare than any other country yet millions of our fellow citizens are uninsured. Rather than go to the doctor they let problems grow until they require a hospital visit at much higher cost. We all foot the bill for that.

The chart above shows what welfare costs us over a 5 year period. We all have a picture in our minds of some person (not of our race no matter what our race is) sitting on their ass, talking on their cell phone, playing their Xbox, and laughing at all the squares heading out to their jobs. The truth, if you choose to look, is that the majority of those receiving benefits work or are elderly. They receive benefits because their jobs don't pay enough to keep them out of poverty. Trickle down economics sounded like it made sense until we saw that it doesn't happen. The folks at the top don't trickle much of that money down. You might argue that corporations aren't making enough money because their tax burden is too high. Try doing some research. Corporations are making more profit than ever. They are not spending it on labor or expanding production. The folks at the bottom who would like to buy those goods can't buy because they aren't being paid enough. When pay goes up, consumption will rise and jobs will be created. This will create more growth and more jobs. Did you ever wonder where your tax dollars go?

You may be concerned about welfare costs and you should be. Most of the money you are paying is for corporate welfare. It isn't those folks working at WalMart who are paid an inadequate wage that are the problem. It is a highly profitable corporation like WalMart who pay their workers poverty wages. Those workers get government benefits because their employer does not pay them enough for their work.

Want to balance the federal budget? Eliminate the tax breaks. Stop allowing millionaires and billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than the secretaries that work for them. Cut out the corporate tax loopholes. Stop allowing companies tax breaks for moving jobs out of the United States.

We secure the blessings of liberty and prosperity for ourselves and our posterity when we all work together. When we stop being divided by race, class, religious belief and everything else the folks in charge have us fighting each other about while they screw us over. The power is not with the government or with the rich and influential. Over 200 years ago the people who worked to found this country understood and began our supreme law with WE THE PEOPLE.