Here we go again. The Republicans cut taxes for the rich, then fret over the deficit they helped create. For example, the 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious spending restraint caused the nation’s debt to soar.
What to do? The usual Republican answer is to cut public services, typically changes that hurt the elderly and the poor. Poor people do not have the political clout to defend themselves; therefore, the usual places to cut are Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
In his 2023 State of the Union address, President Biden maneuvered the Republicans into a defensive howl that they would NOT cut Social Security or Medicaid. With that so fresh in taxpayers’ minds, even the legislators who are blatant hypocrites with no shred of shame would have to think twice before cutting the usual targets.
What to do? For now, the Republican answer is to cut WIC, a public service that helps feed poor women, infants, and children under age five. If politicians want to cut services for those with no political clout, infants are a great choice.
Most WIC recipients are new mothers struggling to provide the bare minimum of food and other necessities. In Oklahoma, for example, women no longer have the right to freely choose childbirth. Our legislature has taken childbearing authority away from mothers and left them with all the responsibilities. Now, Republicans propose to make support for childbearing even less available, nationwide.
It makes no economic sense to slash WIC—unless the real motive is to punish poor mothers. Cutting this expense will have the opposite effect of further increasing the deficit. WIC has been shown to reduce preterm births, low birth weight, and infant mortality. Every $1 spent on WIC results in an average savings of $2.48 in health care costs ((https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/ research/economic-evaluation-of-california- prenatal-participation-in-thespecial- supplemental-nutrition-program- for-women-infants-and-childrenwic- to-prevent-preterm-birth/).
Are our legislators so hardhearted or self-obsessed that they have no consideration for the very real people their policies affect? How many of us search for lawmakers who actually intend to serve the people they are pledged to represent? The ultra-MAGA extremists (the label preferred by Marjorie Taylor Greene) at both the state and federal level, seem to believe their job is to get TV time and social media hits for their latest outrage.
In late 2010, Mitch McConnell, leader of the GOP, said his goal was to make Obama a one-term president. Sure enough, the Republicans became the party of “just say no” to any bill sponsored by a Democrat. The welfare of the people involved seemed irrelevant.
When Donald Trump was elected, the GOP’s mission became to undo anything accomplished by Obama’s administration, whether we the people wanted it or not.
This kind of stalemate between the parties is nothing new. Party battles have plagued America from the beginning. George Washington had to contend with two parties that worked to destroy each other, the Federalists and the Republicans.
In 1796, Washington insisted that partisan battles make it much harder to run a government for the people. He wrote: “It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion (Songs of America, Tim McGraw, Jon Meacham, 2019, p.28).
How did America’s first president describe our current problems so accurately? Scandal, corruption, and foreign influence seem to be the unavoidable outcome of putting the power of parties over the welfare of people.
Our Founders saw the danger that partisanship posed to this democracy. If we wish the country to continue being a strong nation, able to cope with internal challenges and foreign conflicts, we must find a way to listen to each other and to compromise, for the good of us all.