Does government have a moral responsibility to guarantee everyone a decent standard of living?

I am a former Social Studies / History and Business teacher with minor hours in Economics.  I am also an Independent who has, in most years, voted Republican in national elections.  However, I almost certainly will not be voting Republican this year (unless Hillary gets the nomination…then I’ll have to think about it).  I find myself, strangely, a staunch Sanders supporter.  Before you dismiss me out of hand as going off my rocker, please understand why!  

I saw this posted on a friend’s Facebook wall this week and I find I can agree with this only to a certain extent.  I believe we are responsible for our actions and what we do to ensure a decent standard of living for our family and ourselves.  The government is definitely not responsible for what I do with my opportunities. I am!  However, I must qualify my agreement.  I have to humbly disagree that the government bears no responsibility and that this quote is truthful as an absolute.  When the standard of living for all middle and lower class people (the 95-99%) is being jeopardized by the very rich, large corporations, and the government that should protect us, I believe there IS a moral and ethical responsibility that our government is not living up to.

Many Americans are only now waking up to the fact that Congress members have, for years, been putting forth, and passing, bills which were often not even written by lawmakers for the benefit of society.  Often these bills were written by, or were written with enormous input from, the large corporations they are intended to regulate or tax.  It is no wonder that these laws benefit those same corporations and the very rich and not We The People.  These laws are then pushed through a Congress that has been bought and paid for by lobbying companies who promise: (1) lucrative (and cushy) jobs when the lawmaker is no longer in office, (2) high-paying jobs to lawmakers’ family members, and (3) huge campaign donations.  Would you do all these things without expecting something in return?  These corporations definitely expect something for their money!  These companies, and their lobbyists, are run by, and benefit, the top 1%.  Tax loopholes, corporate welfare, and lax regulations written into law, and the repeal of protective government controls, are primarily what caused our recent recession.  They are what continue to hurt We The People as 95-99% of all new income goes to the top 1%.  

Money is not unlimited.  I believe we are in a situation much like that of the 1920s preceding the Great Depression.  Jobs are disappearing, lower wage jobs constitute most of the new ones available, and most of the money is being held at the top.  Do you remember from history what happens when the lower and middle classes can no longer afford to buy the products produced by companies in the United States?  Consumption goes down, and eventually companies can no longer afford to operate.  When this happens, the companies shut down factories and businesses and even more people lose their jobs and their standard of living.  When these companies close, the restaurants and service industries around them suffer as well.  With the passage of NAFTA and CAFTA, we inserted a new phase into this cycle.  A new phase in which companies, to stimulate consumption, take steps to reduce the price of their goods.  Thus, these companies move production to countries with few or no regulations protecting their workers or the environment in order that Americans, again will be able to consume their, now cheaper, products…and close their factories here.  We are in a slow downward spiral.  Does anyone really believe our economy is actually getting better?  Democrats say it is (Right!!!), I believe it’s a temporary small gain in a long spiral downward.  Further cutting taxes for the corporations is NOT going to fix our economy.  Making it lucrative for the 99% will.  

Meanwhile, we pay more and more for health care.  Meanwhile, the Republicans I once supported want to reduce Social Security and Medicare in order to cut the deficit, they say.  Our seniors have responsibly paid into Social Security for decades, in order to maintain their standard of living in retirement.  Social Security had, and still should have, enough money to pay baby boomers and their aging parents, except that much of the money was “borrowed” with an IOU from the government to the tune of billions during the Bush administration to pay for the Iraq war among other things.  Frequently, Republicans now say that they want to privatize Social Security.  This means that the moneys in it invested in it will be invested the stock market which, if things continue to spiral down, may eventually crash and leave people with little to nothing.  Neither cutting Social Security, nor privatizing it is a good option for those who rely on it or who expect to benefit from what we paid in one day.

The recent recession was brought on as much by Congressional corruption as by Wall Street.  Let me give you a personal recollection:  Where I live, in a very nice community 45 minutes north east of downtown Detroit, at one point one in four houses was for sale or in foreclosure just a few short years ago.  South of where I live, and in the city, this percentage was much higher.  People I knew lost their jobs.  People I knew lost their homes.  They lost their standard of living that they worked so hard to maintain.  The jobs that were available to most of them paid far less that what they had made before.  I taught in the general area made famous by rapper Eminem.  Our district ran just north of 8 Mile Road up past 11 Mile Road.  I taught homeless kids whose families were now split up as some lived with one relative, and others with another.  Some lived in low rent, cheap hotels that offered weekly rates for a single dismal room for a family of 4 or more.  Some moved into the government project housing which was a far different environment than these kids (or their parents) had ever experienced. This was all through no fault of their own.  Many of these people were college educated and many had savings which rapidly depleted as they tried to keep their heads above water.

When the tax dollars people have paid in by working at a job that previously kept their family in a nice house in the nice neighborhood are used to bail out the very industry that placed them where they are.  When no one goes to jail for their corruption.  And when, instead, these same people receive millions of dollars in bonuses, it is hard NOT to blame the government which was complicit in the deal.  It is hard to say that that government holds no moral responsibility at all for your standard of living.

Does the government have a moral responsibility to guarantee everyone a decent standard of living?  No, probably not, but it does have a moral responsibility to ensure that the opportunity is not stolen from hardworking men and women (We The People) by the predatory practices of large corporations, the very rich, and a Congress that is corrupt on both sides of the aisles!

Believe me, I thoroughly researched Bernie Sanders before I decided to back him.  Bernie Sanders is not a communist as many would have us believe.  There is absolutely no way I would support him if he was.  Sanders is a DEMOCRATIC socialist.  There is a HUGE difference.  Democratic socialists believe in capitalism but that capitalism should be tempered by a government that protects its citizens from its excesses.  Sander’s platform is very similar to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in the 1930s.  Some of his policies line up directly with Eisenhower’s, Kennedy’s, and Johnson’s and were once supported by people on both the right and left until the right was co-opted by big business.  Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government.  But, democratic socialists don’t want big corporations and the wealthy to control society either.  Economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect…in other words, We The People.  

Is there no one who remembers our history?  That our founders decided all children, and not just the children of the very rich, should learn to read and write and do arithmetic for the betterment of our country so they established public grammar schools.  That as people become more educated and our society progressed that the government added middle years up to 8^th grade and high school?  During my lifetime (I was born in 1960), publicly funded kindergarten was also added as a requirement in most (44) states and preschool was added in many disadvantaged areas.  I live in one of the six states where kindergarten is not actually required by law (Michigan) but the school districts provide it because they see the advantages.  Why is the natural extension of public funding to colleges and universities as countries around the world have done such a problem for some?

Why is it a problem for people that everyone should have health care?  If you take the amount of money that Americans already pay for healthcare and divide it by the number of citizens we have, we are STILL paying vastly more than any other country on earth…and yet some of our citizens cannot afford health care or medications.  It is ludicrous.  Sanders wants a single payer system and to get rid of the companies that are ripping us off.  He does not want to socialize medicine and healthcare itself.  Some would use the veterans hospitals and administration as an example of government run healthcare.  That is not Sander’s plan at all.  And, I might remind everyone that the VA is woefully underfunded.  Sanders just wants to have a single payer who pays and that can negotiate and set how much.  If that passed, most of us would pay far less than we pay now.  How is that a problem for anyone?|

Why is it a problem that Sanders will raise the income tax for people making over $250K per year and close some loopholes allowing many millionaires and billionaires to pay much less as a percentage than most of us pay?  I don’t know who threw out the 90% tax number but anyone who actually took the time to read Sanders plan would know that all but a very small percentage of us will have no change in income tax rates at all.  Unfortunately, there are some within my own family who would rather publish false, negative and misleading propaganda rather than educate themselves.  The world has my apologies for that but they are adults and, as this is a free country, they can remain as ignorant as they desire.  Their cognitive dissidence is astounding.

Before you write Sanders off because of everything you hear and see on television, please note this.  Massive corporations now own and dominate the U.S. media.  The media is no longer liberal as it once was.  Although they like to throw out the “liberal bias” line, it is mostly no longer truthful.  Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the very wealthy and the large corporations now control almost everything we see, hear or read.  There is not a single major news network that is not now owned by these corporations and billionaires.  Do you really think they are telling us all the truth…or what they want us to believe?  Some of it is spin and some of it is outright lying.

Readers, before you close your minds to Sanders ideas, please PLEASE do your research as I have done.  Spend several days on the Internet researching and comparing what you learn.  Learn what you are saying "No" to.  The future of country and the future of our children depend upon you.