Category Archives: Congress

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, budget, Congress, Constitution, donald trump, immigration

THE WALL IS INSIGNIFICANT

originally published 1/16/2019

Benjamin Franklin supposedly described our new form of government to a citizen as “a republic, if you can keep it”.  A republic is a sovereign nation where power resides in elected individuals representing citizens, and where government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law.  The debate over whether to build a wall along our border with Mexico is no longer about the wall.  It is about whether we are still a republic. Continue reading THE WALL IS INSIGNIFICANT →

All Posts, civil rights, Congress, Constitution, justice

LET’S CONTINUE ARGUING

It was on July 4, 1776 that representatives of the people of every colony unanimously announced themselves as member states that would form a new nation.   Before there was a constitution or a president, there was our Declaration of Independence.

In just one eloquent sentence that declaration laid the philosophical foundation for the United States of America, its Constitution, laws and traditions.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  That sentence provides glimpses of the shining city on the hill that Americans aspire to build.  As each generation adds to the city, there are debates and battles over laws, the role of government and our vision for the future. Continue reading LET’S CONTINUE ARGUING →

All Posts, budget, Congress, deficit, donald trump, economy, taxes

IS THE FINANCIAL END NEAR?

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The cartoon made me laugh. Maybe it’s funny because it’s based in truth.   Although I hope that our national litany of mini-crises and scandals will end soon, I don’t expect it.  These stormy times are distracting us from more important issues, particularly our national financial situation. Continue reading IS THE FINANCIAL END NEAR? →

All Posts, Congress, Constitution, justice

REREADING THE CONSTITUTION

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When I’m confused and disappointed by the actions of our elected leaders, I sometimes get the urge to reread our Constitution.  Here are thoughts from a recent rereading.

From Article 1 Section 4: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”  Our Congress has the authority to standardize how and when we elect its members.  It seems reasonable to conclude that Congress could prohibit partisan gerrymandering.

From Amendment 14 Section 1:  “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”  Legislative districts are created by state law.  Here in North Carolina, the Legislature’s stated purpose in gerrymandering the districts was to elect Republicans to 10 of the 13 seats even though nearly half of voters actually vote for Democrats.  They achieved that goal.  The law that created gerrymandered districts seems to deny equal protection to citizens who disagree with Republicans.

From Article 2 Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  Bribery would apply if a President accepted a bribe. Would it also be bribery if a Presidential candidate or his team agreed to not implement sanctions on Russia in exchange for information useful to their campaign?

The US Supreme Court has received gerrymandering cases from Wisconsin, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.  The lower courts are so politicized that news reports generally include whether the judges were appointed by Democrats or Republicans.  The implication is that a judge is likely to rule in favor of the party that appointed her or him.  That is an awful but sadly credible assumption to make about our supposedly independent judiciary.

If the court rules against gerrymandering, that is likely to result in Democrats gaining seats in the House of Representatives.  In addition to being the body that originates federal budgets, the House is the body with authority to impeach a President – an action which a Republican led House might be more reluctant to consider.

If the Senate had approved President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, there would be a 5-4 split of Democrat vs Republican judges.  Instead, the Republican controlled Senate refused to even consider the nomination for months – in hopes of winning the presidency and getting a Republican nominee.  They succeeded in that; and with the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch there is a 5-4 split favoring Republicans.  What will it say about our Supreme Court if a Gerrymandering decision is decided by that margin?

The Presidential election of 2000 may well have been swung from Al Gore to George W. Bush by a party-line 5-4 Supreme Court decision that stopped the Florida vote recount.  We’ll never know.  Nor will we know whether the US would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after 9-11 under President Gore.  Such decisions change our history in profound ways.

Underlying many of the suspicions, malfunctions and failures of our government is the increasingly bitter partisan divide. Note however, that political parties are not even mentioned in our constitution.  Only individuals, not political parties, have a constitutional right to be on a ballot.  To protect their power (and the President), Republicans are now attacking the credibility of important institutions including our FBI, CIA and Justice Department.  Russian agents have effectively used social media to discredit those same agencies.  How ironic is it to find Republican leadership and Russian espionage agents on the same side?

President Washington warned, in his farewell address, that political parties, “…are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” It’s an apt description of current events.

Nations succeed and become great when most of the people support them and feel fairly treated.  When a large proportion feel mistrust and mistreated, nations fail.  Rather than “becoming great again”, our nation is in jeopardy due to citizen mistrust of elected officials.  My conclusion is that it’s up to voters to save the union. No one else can do it.

All Posts, budget, Congress, deficit, economy, taxes

THE COMING FISCAL CRISIS

The caller was a friend that I haven’t seen for too long.  She’s up in years, older even than me, but as quick-witted and engaging as I remembered.  “Why”, she wanted to know, “haven’t you written about Republicans’ plan to take away deductions for medical expenses?”  Then she told me her story.  I had promised myself a respite from the tax law controversy, but it’s too important to be left alone.

Karen and her husband Jim (not their real names) are neither poor nor wealthy.  They saved and managed their money well in preparation for retirement but Jim is now ill, disabled, and in need of daily assistance in just about all of his activities.  With Karen’s help, he doesn’t have to go to a nursing home, but she can’t meet all of his needs so she pays for daily help.  Medicare and insurance don’t cover the cost.  The budget is tight but they make it work.

Under current tax law Karen can deduct medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of their income.  So, if their taxable income is $50,000 and the medical expenses not covered by insurance are $20,000, here’s how it works.  They pay an amount equal to 10 percent of income, $5000 in this case.  That leaves another $15,000 of expenses that she can deduct from their income.  So they will pay income tax on $35,000 rather than $50,000.  If they are in the 15 percent tax bracket, the deduction would save them $2250.  That’s a lot of money when you’re on a tight budget.

The fate of their deductions will be decided behind closed doors in a House-Senate Conference Committee.   The Senate version of the Republican bill will allow the deduction.  If the House version passes, Karen and Jim will be spared the trouble of keeping records because the expenses won’t be deductible.

“What can we do?” Karen asked me.  I stuttered a lot trying to find an answer.  She wrote and called congressmen.  She never got to talk to one and her perception is that their minds are made up to pass a bill quickly without considering who will be hurt.  She’ll try again anyway because neither of us knows an alternative.

The fates of Karen, Jim and millions of other Americans are in the hands of congressional Republicans who seem intent on passing a law before public opposition rises to an insurmountable level.  There have been no public hearings with expert testimony, no people like Karen explaining their concerns and few, if any, town hall meetings where legislators face voter questions. Republicans seem desperate to pass something – anything – rather than face economists, experts and angry constituents.

It’s easy to get lost in lists of tax bill losers: the sick, graduate students, the middle class, residents of high tax states, on and on.  Hundreds of issues are up for grabs.  They’re all important but to focus on any one of them is to miss the fact that we have no financial plan for our national future.  Either version of the Republican bill will add somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion to our budget deficits in ten years, and deficits will continue after that at a similar rate.  That borrowed money will be given to corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans in the form of tax cuts.  Every American will be obligated to repay the debt.

There’s no way to make a sensible budget from the revenue that will remain after the tax cuts.  Social Security is self-funded by employee and employer contributions.  It will remain totally self-sufficient through 2036.  It needs a bit more revenue or lower expenses to be solvent past that date but its problems seem minor.   The crisis is in the rest of the budget.

Republicans have pledged to increase spending or hold it steady for defense, Medicare, and Medicaid/Health programs.  Their tax bill does not produce enough non-social security revenue to pay for anything else after keeping those promises and paying interest on the national debt.   Yes, you read it right.  They have promised to spend all federal tax revenue on defense, Medicare, Medicaid/Health and interest expense.  Did they do the math before they made the promises?

The Republican plan cuts taxes so much that there is no sensible financial path forward, just a mountain of debt.  The light that they claim to see at the end of the tunnel is a train; and it’s headed our way.

TO DOWNLOAD CHART CLICK HERE

IF REPUBLICAN TAX PLAN HAD BEEN LAW IN 2016
REVENUE
BILLIONS SOURCE
2016 FEDERAL REVENUE $3300 CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
LESS SOCIAL SECURITY REVENUE ($958) SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTEES REPORT
NON SOCIAL SECURITY REVENUE $2342
LESS TAX CUT ($100) MEDIAN OF ESTIMATES
FUTURE PROJECTED REVENUE $2242
SPENDING
MEDICARE $593  

DERIVED FROM PEW RESEARCH CENTER

CLICK LINK FOR SPECIFICS
MEDICAID/HEALTH $514
DEFENSE AND VA $790
INTEREST ON DEBT $237
SUBTOTAL $2134
PROPOSED DEFENSE INCREASE $116 ESTIMATE BASED ON SENATE PROPOSAL
SPENDING PROTECTED BY REPUBLICAN PROMISES $2250
ALL OTHER 2016 SPENDING $869
PROJECTED DEFICIT $877
All Posts, budget, Christianity, Congress, ethics, taxes

A SINFUL TAX LAW

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Today I began to understand why the proposed new tax law disturbs me so much.  Simply stated, it is sin enshrined in law and all of us are accountable for it.  I’ll use the bill recommended by the Senate Finance Committee to show you what I mean.  All of the other versions have similar effects.

Senate Bill effect on tax by income percentile c

The politicians and wealthy donors who support the bill will walk away with the money and leave the rest of America holding the new debt that pays for it – about $18,400 for a family of four – in just the first decade of the law.  The tax CUT for the wealthiest Americans will be bigger than the TOTAL INCOME of 80 percent of families.

Passing this bill while corporate profits, stock values and cash balances are at record highs and while middle class Americans are struggling to get by and while the poor can’t properly feed and educate their children…that seems sinful to me.

Sin has lots of definitions and I’ll take the liberty of using my own.  Sin is any conscious action which separates you from that which is good – your own understanding of  “God”, “Creation” or the rest of humanity.  Although we may have differing religious or spiritual beliefs, that understanding of sin seems consistent with all of them.

An important observation about sin – we’re aware that we’re doing something wrong, but we do it anyway.  That’s exactly where we’re headed with this tax law.  It will place an unjust burden of debt on poor and middle-class Americans to benefit the wealthiest among us.  How many of the bill’s supporters know in their consciences that it’s wrong, but will quietly allow it because their donors and political tribe expect that?  This bill is a conscious action that separates us from what is good – the very definition of sin.

As I pondered these troubling thoughts, I looked to values that I’ve known since childhood.  So have most readers.  And if we’ve thought at all deeply about those values we can see them reflected in all Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  If we expand our awareness to include Buddhist, Native American, other religions – even Atheist teachings, we find similar values and a similar concept of “sin”.  We know that it separates us from what is good and we do it anyway.  I’m going to quote some scripture, because this seems to be a time when we are in particular need that sort of wisdom.

Leviticus 23:22  “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger:  I am the Lord your God.”

In Matthew, Chapter 25:34-46 Jesus describes the Creator-King welcoming followers with these words, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”  …  “Truly, I say to you, that as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”  Then he proceeded to condemn those who did not help the least of their brethren.

There it is for all to see – what better example of sin than burdening our poorest citizens with debt in order to enrich the wealthiest?  Those who quietly consent to the passage of this law are complicit in the sin.

Mark 12:38-39 “Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.  They will receive the greater condemnations.”

It is necessary to instruct our representatives.  “Don’t do this sinful thing in our names!”

 

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, budget, Congress, deficit, donald trump, medicaid, taxes

THE PRESIDENT OF CHAOS

The picture on my computer screen should be better so I tried adjusting it.  That made it worse so I’ll hit it with a sledgehammer and see if that helps.  Unfortunately, that foolish approach is being applied by President Trump to vital national interests like health care,  defense,  immigration, and budgets.

One of Trump’s competitors, Jeb Bush predicted the problem back in 2015 saying,  “Donald, you know, is great at the one-liners.  But he’s a chaos candidate.  And he’d be a chaos president.  He would not be the commander-in-chief we need to keep our country safe.”

Never a dull moment...
Never a dull moment…

President Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with something better: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody…There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”…“I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid”.

As President, Trump never proposed a way to provide health care regardless of Americans’ ability to pay for it and he did support cutting Medicaid.  Obamacare has insured about 20 million Americans who had no benefits before the law passed; and at the same time it has slowed the growth of the nation’s healthcare spending.  It’s a success but it needs improvement.  When nothing that he or other Republicans proposed passed, Trump swung his sledgehammer at Obamacare’s most vulnerable spot, the individual markets.  He announced termination of the federal  subsidy to insurance companies for low-income subscribers.  That will damage the already fragile individual insurance markets in some communities – breaking our healthcare system without a plan to replace it.

Trump threatens to withdraw from our agreement with Iran, under which they shut down their nuclear weapons program and gave up 98 percent of their nuclear materials.  The agreement was designed with one goal in mind – don’t let Iran develop  nuclear weapons.  We managed to get Russia, all of Europe and China on the same page because they all agreed with that goal; and it was our combined power that made the deal possible.  Trump can’t persuade Iran to do other things that he wants so out comes the sledgehammer to break the Iran agreement.  If the deal falls apart and if China, Russia and Europe go their own ways, there will be nothing to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  By destroying the Iran deal without a plan to replace it Trump also tells other nations  that any President can ignore commitments made by his predecessors.  The USA will be seen as untrustworthy.

The DACA program for children brought to the US illegally is an imperfect solution to a problem that congress has been unwilling to address.  Trump promises to hit it with his sledgehammer – forcing law enforcement to round-up and deport children and young adults who have lived most of their lives as Americans.  Again, he has no plan for replacing what he will destroy.  Many young adults will be driven to hide in an underground economy where they have little opportunity for success.  That’s a breeding ground for dissension, hopelessness and crime.

Trump plans to hit your wallet with a sledgehammer too – by cutting taxes, mostly for the wealthy, while increasing military spending and  our national debt at even faster rates than his predecessors.  Americans will have to repay that debt at some future date.  Our ability to borrow money for a true catastrophe or war is already impaired because so much of our debt capacity has been used.  We currently owe $20 trillion.  That is about $62,000 for every American or $161,600 for every American who works at a full or part-time job.

Donald Trump again proposes the sledgehammer approach saying,  “I am the king of debt,”…”I love debt. I love playing with it.”  and “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal”…”And if the economy was good, it was good. So therefore, you can’t lose.”  When he says “make a deal”, that means refusing to pay our debt, most of which is owed to Americans.  It’s not the same as letting one of his casinos go bankrupt.

If the Republican congress allows President Trump to deliver more sledgehammer blows to our nation, the resulting chaos will belong personally to Donald Trump and each legislator who supported him.  The GOP will own the chaos but the American people (including DACA kids) will pay a heavy price for it.

All Posts, budget, Congress, deficit, economy

MAKING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE GREAT AGAIN

We must maintain our existing infrastructure while we build more of it; and we need to agree on how to do that.  One guiding principle for those decisions is “TANSTAAFL”.  That’s the acronym for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”.  Infrastructure is expensive.

The report card on American infrastructure published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is probably the most comprehensive analysis available.  It identifies a multitude of current and anticipated concerns.  Our Congress has paid only scant attention to ASCE warnings about our backlog of maintenance and construction needs.

President Trump has proposed spending $1 Trillion on infrastructure over the coming decade and has pointed out that a lot of new jobs could be created through such a program. He has yet to clarify how projects would be selected, who would own them and how they would be funded.

Our existing infrastructure has been built and is owned by a sometimes bewildering mix of local, state, regional and national government entities along with utility companies, railroads, airport authorities, and various kinds of public-private partnerships.  Sometimes, as in the case of abandoned dams and waste disposal sites, ownership is not clearly identified.

Even if the congress could agree on a way to standardize and prioritize our infrastructure ownership and financing, it would probably be a bad idea.  The ways of doing things that work well in rural America are often different from the best ways to do things in urban areas.  The process of deciding what to build, how much government money to spend and how to organize the effort will necessarily be complicated, messy, and sometimes controversial.  Despite that, it’s worth doing.

We should look back at the last serious effort to renew our infrastructure in hopes that this effort will succeed where the last one failed – in the United States Senate.  In 2011, President Obama proposed a more modest and more specific infrastructure plan that called for $50 billion in federal spending on highway, rail, airport and transit improvements plus another $10 billion to start a “National Infrastructure Bank” intended to spur public-private partnerships.  The proposal passed the Senate by a 51-49 vote but was blocked by a Republican filibuster – as were most Obama initiatives.

President Obama proposed to pay for his plan by imposing a surtax of 7/10 of one percent on incomes in excess of $1 million.  President Trump’s more ambitious proposal appears to call for $200 billion in federal spending plus unspecified local and state spending and unspecified private spending accounting for the rest of the $1 trillion price tag.  He has not announced a plan to pay for it other than by mentioning that our low interest rates make this an inexpensive time to borrow money.

This complicated but important issue is the kind that our traditional Congressional procedures were designed to address.  Advice from experts will be needed, followed by a great deal of negotiation and compromise. There is no perfect plan for such complex needs.  There will be negotiations to determine which states and communities get their projects approved.  Every decision will be subject to criticism and second-guessing.   That’s how it was with big federal projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and facilities for NASA, our armed forces and other federal departments.  The planning was complex and  controversial but certainly worth the trouble.

Leaders in both political parties know that our national infrastructure needs renewal and expansion.  Both parties have proposed it when they were in power.  Are they up to the task of responsibly designing a way to achieve and pay for that ambitious goal?  Their predecessors in the 1930s through the 1960s figured out how to establish a national power grid, phone service, interstate highways, NASA, hydroelectric dams, public water and sewer systems, national parks, airports, hospitals, schools…the list goes on.  They facilitated public-private collaboration in ways that worked for American citizens – things like blending rural utility co-ops, private utility companies, and municipally owned utilities into national electric, gas, and phone systems.

Today about 18 million Americans are served by water systems that violate lead safety standards.  That’s just one example of our problems.  There are similar concerns in every category of infrastructure and there are no simple answers.  We need a congress that is willing to do their homework and make hard decisions on behalf of the citizens who elected them.  That can happen if voters demand it.  TANSTAAFL.

All Posts, Congress, economy, health, medicaid, north carolina

Congressional Legislative Malpractice

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The 13 Senators who drafted a bill to replace Obamacare are all Republican, male, white, over age 40, and prosperous.  California, Florida and New York, which together account for one-fourth of our population, were not in the room but there were two Senators from number fifty Wyoming.

Discussing diverse opinions is one way to identify and avoid unintended consequences of new legislation. Do Republicans think that women, middle class, minorities, young, poor, and other Americans left out of the process have no ideas worthy of consideration?

They did their work in secret meetings without input by experts in health policy or economics, out of the sight of the public and the press.  The result is a political bill to satisfy Republican ideology with little regard for facts or alternatives.

Previously, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a similar bill that was designed behind closed doors without serious public hearings, expert testimony or debate.  They proceeded despite a Congressional Budget Office projection that it would cause 23 million Americans to become uninsured.  The CBO’s estimate of spending reductions from the bill  amount to $43 per month saved for each person who loses health benefits – not a good deal!

There’s no doubt that Obamacare has serious problems in the individual and small employer exchanges.  Republicans try to mislead us into believing that those troubles mean that the law is failing.  It isn’t.   Because of Obamacare 20 million more Americans are now insured and the rate of growth in total health care spending is lower than it was before Obamacare.  It is a successful law that needs improvements.

Bluntly, Republican lawmakers don’t believe that all Americans should receive basic health care regardless of their ability to pay and they’re willing to let other Americans die for that ideology.  Republican leadership intends to pass their bill before Americans understand that it will cause more people to lose health benefits,  more healthcare related family bankruptcies and more individuals suffering death or disability.

Rushing ill-considered bills through a legislature to satisfy an ideology is not limited to the congress.  North Carolina Republicans imagined an “emergency” when Charlotte passed a civil rights ordinance allowing transgender citizens to use restroom facilities consistent with their gender identity (and, in most cases, consistent with their physical appearance).  Rather than holding hearings and carefully considering what (if any) legislation was needed, they packed the infamous HB-2 with unrelated and controversial provisions then passed it as “emergency” legislation.  If standard legislative processes had been followed, a more appropriate response (or no response) to Charlotte’s ordinance might have been made.  HB-2 has been mostly repealed, but the damage to the state’s reputation remains and some economic losses will never be recovered.

Similarly, North Carolina Republicans gerrymandered the state’s congressional and legislative districts through secret processes.  They hired attorneys who hired consultants to design legislative districts that would give massive election advantages to Republicans.  Because the work was done through attorneys, they were able to claim attorney-client privilege as justification for refusing to let the public and the press see exactly how they instructed the consultants.  The US Supreme Court ruled that the result of their work was racial discrimination.  It again seems obvious that an open process with public hearings could have produced a better outcome.

If Republicans were practicing medicine rather than legislating, their negligence would be called malpractice.  They circumvented the rules and procedures  that  assure thoughtful deliberation before laws are passed. That violates American values, undermines trust in government and exposes us all to the negative consequences of ill-considered laws.

Senate Republicans plan to debate, amend and pass a healthcare bill back to the House of Representatives in 10 days, with no public hearings and no expert testimony.  As an example of the unanticipated consequences of doing that, unemployed Republican rural voters in the coal mining areas of the Kentucky mountains will probably lose their Medicaid benefits and see closure of clinics opened to serve them under Obamacare.  Health care has added more jobs than mining lost in the Kentucky mountains.  Similar outcomes are inevitable in other places.  The damage to the credibility of our legislative processes is severe.  Worst of all, Americans will die as a result of Republican legislative malpractice.

All Posts, Congress, Constitution

PERSEVERANCE AND POLITICS CAN BRING SUCCESS

Many Americans seem to believe that our nation is declining and in danger of failure.  I don’t think that facts justify that belief.  For example, did you know that the number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of crimes peaked at 134 in the year 1973?  By 2015 it had declined to 46, about one-third of the peak number.  Any killing is one too many but failure to notice improvement encourages unsubstantiated beliefs that our nation is declining. Why are we losing our self-confidence and self-respect when objectively we are making progress?

I recently read a relevant commentary by Lee Hamilton, a retired congressman that I’ve admired for many years.  He represented my conservative Southern Indiana hometown as a Democrat from 1965 through 1999 then served as co-chair of the 9/11 Commission after his retirement.

During Hamilton’s years in congress the issues faced by voters and elected officials were arguably even more contentious and vexing than the ones we face today: voting rights act, Vietnam War, school desegregation and busing, proliferation of nuclear weapons, cold war, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, impeachment and resignation of President Nixon, Equal Rights Amendment, Roe vs Wade decision, and assassination of civil rights and political leaders.

Why did conservative, predominantly rural and white Southern Indiana continue to send a moderate Democrat to Washington for so many years?  After reading his May, 2017 column, I remember why so many of us, Democrats and Republicans, voted for him.  He believed in the perseverance of his constituents; believed in American institutions; and worked honestly to improve those institutions for citizens.

Hamilton opened his comments this way, “I’ve had a number of conversations recently that convince me our country is divided into two political camps separated by a deep and uncomfortably wide gap. No, I’m not talking about liberals and conservatives, or pro- and anti-Trump voters. I’m talking about people who believe in politics and our political system, and people who don’t.”

He points to distrust of institutions and elected officials; popular belief that they are unable or unwilling to solve national problems or help individuals; the excessive influence of big money on policy making, and belief that elected officials are working for personal gain rather than for the public good as subjective reasons why Americans are losing confidence in the nation.

Hamilton makes the case that politics is a worthy profession and urges us to participate.  Rather than a struggle between good and evil, he points to politics as “…our opportunity to help our neighbors, to give us better schools and hospitals and highways, to make our communities safer and more orderly. It’s a means of resolving our differences through dialogue and compromise, rather than through ideological battle or pitched warfare. If you pay attention, you’ll see a lot of politicians who go about their business intelligently, quietly, and competently — and who get good things done.”

We can find many flaws and failures in American history, but if you look at how we developed from thirteen fragile colonies to the USA of today two things are apparent.  One is the remarkable perseverance of American citizens – our belief and our pride in continuously making our nation better.  We’ve never been satisfied, nor should we be.  Instead we continue insisting on improvement.  The second thing that is apparent is that politics and the institutions of government have been our tools to facilitate the changes that we want.

Perseverance and politics helped create our national success.   Despite the messy and contentious nature of our politics, we should respect how much better it is than anarchy.  Hamilton argues for citizen involvement in politics as a means to improve our own lives, communities and institutions; and in particular he points out the responsibility to “…encourage young people’s engagement with the problems we confront.”  Through personal involvement we can understand the difficulty of reaching agreement and the amount of work required to make progress.  It’s hard.  But the alternative is surrender to the status quo.

Hamilton closes his commentary with this argument, “Those of us who believe in the system must shoulder the burden of persuasion — and I’m worried about what happens if we don’t meet it. If we lose the argument and the next generation turns away, we face dangers and risks — chaos, authoritarianism — that are far worse than what we face now.”