Where are your priorities?
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything so controversial that my in-box has been filled with anti-Nick emails inviting me to stick my opinion, and I can’t say I’ve missed those days. But something has been bothering me. And when my medical providers ask me why my blood pressure is elevated, my mind immediately goes to that something.
Let me open this semi-rant with the following explanation. For 10 years I was a teacher. To become a teacher, I attended 12 years of public school. Then I went to one of Pennsylvania’s public colleges where I received Pell grants that, upon graduation, allowed me to write off 10% of my college debt each year for teaching in a distressed school district. I used public libraries and drove on public roads. Because my dad had been severely injured in an accident, as a small kid we lived on government surplus food for a little while.
You see, I was a product of safety nets that helped me and my family in the form of food subsidies, public transportation, public education and government grants. Oh, and my grandparents were able to survive post-retirement due to Social Security. But let me get back to the issue stuck sideways in my craw (wherever a craw is located). What was wrong with that type of help?
Each one of us has been touched, helped, or had our lives improved in some way because of things like health care, unemployment compensation, Social Security, public education, or publicly subsidized libraries, farms, roads, airports, or most recently, from COVID relief packages. My friends and professional peers often get on their soap boxes about the socialists taking over, but the irony is some of our most conservative states are the largest recipients of federal funds used for subsidizing their citizens’ lives.
The difference between being a completely socialist country and being a capitalist-driven country with a safety net is called The United States of America. Employees who are underpaid while their companies’ owners rank top among America’s wealthiest billionaires are being supported by the safety net in the form of health care and food, but we don’t hear much about those types of subsidies. In other words, we’re subsidizing their employees so their owners can make even more money.
I remember once being invited to briefly speak on a short yacht cruise with four couples who had all flown into Fort Myers/Naples on their separate private jets. As the pilot steered the ship across a very short strip of water to a nearby restaurant, all I heard was its multi-millionaire passengers sniping about the cost of jet and diesel fuel for their planes and boats. They went on about the then-president and his spending on safety-net programs, while extolling the benefits of the previous administration that had helped us commit trillions of dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When we asked them about supporting research for breast cancer, they said we should ask for that money from the government.
It’s all a matter of priorities. Do I believe we should all work, try our best to achieve, and make things happen for ourselves throughout our lives? Yes. Do I also believe that we should have safety nets for those who are trying but still suffering? You bet.
Once, a preacher told me that nearly everyone has the ability to support what they believe in. It’s just a matter of what pocket that support comes from. And he was right.
Our priorities are very clear. We’re underfunding things like child care and preschool and spending nearly a trillion dollars on equipment for the last land and sea war while our country is being rattled by high-tech computer pirates holding us hostage as they wait for their ransoms. There’s a big difference between helping others by caring about our fellow man and being a failed state of people living on welfare.
What are your priorities?
Nick Jacobs of Windber is a Senior Partner with Senior Management Resources and author of the book Taking the Hell Out of Healthcare.