by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, Hamilton
The U.S. Constitution as originally written viewed the function of the federal government to consist of three things: minting a national currency, providing a national postal service, and providing for national defense.
Perhaps that is what our current Republican-dominated House of Representatives is trying to get back to by refusing to even take up issues of immigration, aid to Ukraine and other war-ravaged areas, and even funding the government unless their ideologically extreme demands are met. Hey, disable the government altogether and then see what we can do! If their plan succeeds, I for one will miss – for example –
– Social Security, which keeps a lot of older people I know afloat;
– Medicare, which helps me and many others to new glasses occasionally, not to mention shingles and flu vaccines, preventive health care when needed, such as regular dental check-ups and colonoscopies, etc.;
– Medicaid, which helped support my brother through MS and Parkinson’s and gives so many people without much money a little hope;
– centralized, non-private oversight of the planes I take sometimes to visit grandkids and others;
– centralized, non-private oversight of my drinking water and the air I breathe;
– the Farm Bill, which as I understand it helps family farms resist selling out to Big Ag;
– the hope that Amtrak will finally re-open its southern route across Montana (the Hiawatha closed in 1977);
– the national parks in their uncommercialized state ….
The federal government now seems to include a lot of rich people, but what will you miss if it is taken over altogether by people whose only real concern is their own wealth, power, and ideology?