For us common folk, who depend upon our mild, national safety-net programs for basic services, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, it would behoove us to pay attention to the very serious threat emerging to these social programs in the upcoming fight in Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Paul Krugman offers great insights into this issue in his recent op-ed, “Why Republican politicians still hate Medicare.”
I’ve wondered if this issue is related to the apparent local support for the wasteful spending on proposed projects like the Utah Lake restoration project and Little Cottonwood gondola, that would principally benefit just a few vested interests.
It could be related to the extreme culture war voters’ support for the career politicians who profess the Republican mantra of small government and low tax policies, and who depend upon the donations from their ultra-rich partisans who also like that Republican mantra.
The culture extremists don’t necessarily care about specific government policy, they go along with the chaos just to “stick it to the libs”; and the career politicians may want to preserve their contribution lifelines to the rich, for winning office.
So, it may be that the support for those wasteful, useless projects, when there are so many other meaningful fiscal needs to fulfill – like sustainable development infrastructure, saving the GSL and homelessness – is from voters and politicians who want to preserve favor from their rich benefactors, who also support the wasteful projects.
Many of us from all philosophies, including the culture extremists, may want to pay careful attention to the upcoming debt limit fight in Congress, as it may bring down this legacy social-net system that many of us critically depend upon.
John Kennington, Cottonwood Heights
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