Today as I look at news articles I continue to see what appears to be an assault on poor and elderly.
I see continually that social security cuts and changes are on the table. I see that there is a move to dismantle the department of education. I see that the EPA has been essentially reduced greatly. Funding has been and is being cut to Medicaid and SNAP. To me the common denominator is the average American is going to be affected and at the poor are probably going to be affected even more.
Social Security is there for the most vulnerable citizens: the aged and the disabled. I am not the smartest when it comes to economics, but I know that if the cost of living is going up and I don’t get a raise that offsets or exceeds that increase, essentially I just became poorer. I am concerned about the cuts to Social Security because I have seen the elderly not be okay with social security that it isn’t enough sometimes. The benefits are based on your earnings during your lifetime, going back to your youth, but for many that may have been little. Many women still raise children, which cuts into their earning potential while their children grow as well as in retirement .
The system may need an overhaul.
This particular social welfare service being cut disturbs me greatly. I am close to retiring, but I still wonder will there be enough for me, even though I have been paying into it since I was a teenager. I encourage my children to have multiple streams of income, and to invest and gain more knowledge on investing. Social Security benefits may not be around and/or they may not be enough by the time they are ready to retire.
I also understand that the world is changing. We don’t get a job and work there 30 years and then retire with a pension, having paid off the house and have little to zero debt. Maybe, the entire system needs a reset. Maybe this is it. I don't know, but it is a topic of interest for me. We also have an aging workforce. People are choosing to work longer instead of retiring because they can't afford to retire. Some are raising children and grandchildren or putting them through college. I am concerned with the proposed cuts to the Social Security administration, and will continue to watch that situation unfold.
The dismantling of the Department of Education feels like a giant step back in history. This only makes sense for those that can afford to send their children to a private school of their choice. I have not been able to make any sense out of this. What is the reason for this? What has not been dismantled is the financially lucrative college and university systems. I could spit.
Being a black woman, I also feel like we just went back to the 50’s when there was separate but equal. Why wouldn’t I think that when the country established and built by immigrants is literally waging a war on immigrants. It doesn’t seem to matter if your paperwork is in order or processing, we are going to put you on a plane and deport you while simultaneously slowing or stopping completely the legal process. Oh yeah, and we are enlisting the armed services and local police officers to help.
Who is actually benefitting from any of this? The only things I keep hearing are saving the country money and getting rid of criminals. Okay. I guess. But a felon and his flunky can be president? Is this really what the American people voted for? There is a side of me that says yes this is America. Then there is another side that says hold up—wait a minute—we are talking about con artists, liars, and cheaters Did he really win? Was it stolen? Was there some code placed in the system when it was compromised that has yet to be discovered? Nevertheless, we have what we have. I would say for the next four years; however, there are plans to extend that……I can only shake my head and pray that better must come.
Medicaid and SNAP benefit cuts will affect everyone—but the poor—it will affect them the most. I can see the administration rolling backwards in regard to SNAP benefits because the biggest recipient of SNAP benefits is Walmart and Kroger, so now you are starting to touch the million and billionaires club's money. Medicaid is not as lucrative financially but it will affect some medical offices, some doctors—but mostly those who cater to the poor. Benefit cuts mean cuts in earnings for them. These facilities are doing social work serving the needs of the poor and yet they will also be under the knife.
I find it interesting that I am not very political or economically astute but what I do know is that service organizations get cut first. I remember for a while during the early and mid 2000’s I would only take a job that increased revenue instead of drawing on it to help protect myself from being laid off. This was super important as a single mother. Today I find myself with the same concerns. Do I look for a job that has better potential to last or do I hold on and enjoy the ride and just stay put and wait for the ride to be over. I understand better why social workers may struggle finding employment that pays very well. Most people do not care about the poor. How do you get people to care? That is the question. How do you get people to care about the poor?
This is exactly what I like about free writing exercises. Just sitting down for an hour to let your mind go and let the words flow through your fingers into the screen without worrying about crafting an essay is what we want to do with the reaction essays. This approach to writing helps us see how we are really feeling about issues, and it brings thoughts together so we can consciously observe our thought process. For me, this sort of free writing exercise is important in self-understanding and personal growth, possibly more so than the work in my formal writing assignments (those have more practical applications as tools in policy practice).
Another nice thing about free writing and these reaction essays is that you can see the emotion and hear the voice of the person who is writing the essays.
This particular essay is a good example of the trauma and amazement many people are feeling in the first months of the second Trump administration. Even people who are not especially involved in political thinking, and who do not follow the news closely or feel any particular affiliation with political parties are aware that big changes are going on. Some people who are especially alienated from the political process are feeling optimistic about this. They hate the system, and they feel strong negative emotions against people who defend the system, so they are glad to see the Constitution being ignored and laws being flaunted. Let the whole system go to hell, they may be thinking.
However, for these people cheering on the fire, there are about twice as many who may feel somewhat alienated from politics and fairly skeptical about the government and its programs, but they nevertheless feel horror at what they are witnessing. Many of these people may have voted for Trump, or considered voting for him, and did so with a hope that he would shake up the system in a way that would bring health change and improvements. Their magical thinking has been crushed by the realities of how Trump and Musk and Vance have been behaving. The malicious destruction and incompetent chaos, combined with signs of contempt for law, the Constitution, and expertise would alarm almost anyone with at least a slight knowledge of history and how the government is supposed to work.
People are alarmed by talk of cuts to Social Security and Medicaid. They worry about the destruction of USAID, the Peace Corps, the Voice of America, the Department of Education, the USIP, and many other groups and agencies that were doing many good things (although, like all large human organizations, they had flaws and did some destructive things as well). There are suggestions for ending many HUD programs, including housing choice vouchers. There are suggestions for steep cuts to SNAP. Yes, this sort of thing scares people who know how these policies help people.
How do you get people to care about the poor? America has invested significant cultural effort in building contempt for the poor, and the poor are widely despised. So are persons who have been convicted of crimes, or persons who are homeless, or persons who have become addicted to substances, or people with developmental disabilities, or persons with serious mental illnesses. A significant proportion of the population (between 8% and 20%, depending on how you interpret various studies and surveys) strongly dislikes Black Americans, and smaller (but still non-trivial percentages) dislike Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, and even European-Americans.
I think one thing to give us confidence is that many Americans are fairly unprejudiced, and do like people of different racial backgrounds and ethnicities. Most Americans have been poor. Addiction and serious mental illness has touched the lives of most Americans as well (directly or indirectly). Many Americans do care about the poor. About a third of Americans are willing (or even eager) to vote for candidates who would raise taxes in order to provide universal health care, end homelessness, and try to eliminate poverty. A large majority of Americans would raise the federal minimum wage. A significant number of Americans donate to causes that serve persons who are housing insecure, food insecure, or waiting for their refugee status to be determined.
Early in this semester we read an extract from Bernard-Henri Lévy in which he quoted Jean-Paul Sartre calling people who don’t care about injustice and human misery of others as “scum”. Of course, name-calling and embracing hateful attitudes toward others will not help you convince them to care more about injustice and human misery. And yet, there is something useful in feeling angry with a sort of righteous indignation at people who shrug their shoulders and say, “it’s not my problem—don’t pick my pocket with your taxes to help those people—they should work out their problems without involving me or using my money.” Such attitudes violate our sense of loyalty to the group, since we are including the despised groups as part of our in-group, rather than othering them.
It seems to me that this is the key, and it is contained in all the major religions, and the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have to encourage a sense that every human has dignity, and equal rights. This is an inherent aspect of what it means to be human. Springfield produced a man who pointed out when he was in a debate at Ottawa, Illinois that “[T]here is no reason in the world why the [despite and marginalized people are] not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. That understanding that we have equal rights to life and the pursuit of happiness must, I think, imply a duty to those with plenty to ensure that those with little can have enough security and dignity to enjoy some freedom in their lives. It is there in the Book of Matthew (chapter 25, verse 40): whatever you do to the most despised and marginalized people is what you have done to God. The religious faiths generally all speak of a duty to care for the poor. The secular human rights perspective describes rights as belonging to all people, even if they are poor. Our own American traditions and our intellectual heroes, such as Abraham Lincoln also affirm this importance of all people having access to natural rights (including those recognized in the Constitution's amendments and our Declaration of Independence).
The counter argument, that some people deserve no rights, have no dignity, and ought to be left on the scrap heap is one we have heard from the totalitarian philosophies such as Fascism, Stalinism, Maoism, and to some degree, the animating philosophy that seems to guide our current administration in the United States. Your reaction essay lists some of the areas of policy and projects that demonstrate this sense that we owe nothing to some types of other humans, and they have no rights that deserve any respect from us. This contempt for marginalized persons and the malicious rhetoric about people poisoning our blood is a darkness that has long emerged from the shadows to challenge the light of that idealism we find in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the scriptures and practices of our various religions.
