I don’t pretend to “talk a strong political game” or to completely know what’s best for this country when it comes to passing legislation; however, I do know that I, as a citizen of the United States, have to live and abide by legislature and will be affected by a great deal of the decisions that are made as to what bills are passed and which ones are thrown out or placed into “holding cells” until a later date.
That brings me to this: Yesterday we learned that Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have established a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans back to work. Their reasoning? Republicans said that although the effort was noble, the spending authorized in the bill violated limits that Congress agreed to last year. One senator who voted against the bill argued that making progress on the country's debt was the best way to help veterans in the long-term.
The problem with the delay on passing this bill is this: Some statistics say that more than 720,000 veterans are unemployed across the nation, including 220,000 veterans who have served since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That’s a lot of unemployed veterans! And to think that we recruit soldiers, then send them off to war, only to have them come back and not be able to find work in the country they risked their lives to fight for. How sad is that?
Here’s my question: HOW MANY U.S. CITIZENS ARE WILLING TO SACRIFICE THEIR SURVIVAL IN TODAY’S WORLD FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF A BETTER TOMORROW?
The problem is that people don’t live in the “long-term.” People live in today. They thrive in today. Today is when people need food, shelter, healthcare and JOBS! Yes, we have to think about tomorrow, but we cannot forget about today! Should Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are out of work have to wait until 2013 (tomorrow) for the critical help that they need to survive today?
Overall, is it selfish to live for today? Is it selfish to not sacrifice today’s survival so that our children and grandchildren and their children might have a better tomorrow? That’s what many of us do on a day-to-day basis on a smaller scale, right? We sacrifice for our children’s futures, or do we? Is there a future for our children if we cannot provide for them what they need today?
What about the future of the children of those veterans who cannot find work? What future do they have if they’re hungry today?
Where is the line drawn on what can wait and what can’t? I, for one, think it’s a slap in the face to our veterans that the senate chooses to “draw a technical line on the budget” as referenced by one Democratic Senator. I don’t know it all, but I do know that soldiers returning to this country deserve better than that.
It’s good to plan for tomorrow, but some things can’t and shouldn’t be put off until tomorrow. In my humble opinion, this is one of them!
Note: This post is not intended for Presidential and candidate bashing. If you wish to chime in on the thoughts I just shared, feel free to do so “elegantly.”
