Bar social agendas from budget debate

If the ongoing federal “budget” debate is really all about fiscal responsibility and not social issues and oil, House and Senate members on both sides of the aisle should stand up and say, “Let there be a balanced budget and let it begin with us.” We will take a pay cut as our constituents who work in the private sector have had to do. We also will contribute a percentage of our salary equal to what average working Americans do to fund health care and retirement benefits.

Unfortunately, this is not what we “hear Congress singing.” Instead, some are fighting to maintain tax cuts for the richest Americans, while seeking to defund Head Start, the WIC program and Planned Parenthood, which together amount to a negligible portion of total federal spending. Clearly, they are most concerned with achieving their own social agenda and eroding the image and power of a president they never thought qualified to “occupy” the White House.

It is immoral and unconscionable, if not illegal, to try to fund undeclared wars and balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the sick, children, and the old. If we have learned nothing else from our own history in the Middle East, it is that the “freedom fighters” we arm and train today most likely will establish their own repressive regimes tomorrow and turn our weapons against us.

Let those elected officials who claim to be patriots stand up and do what is best for America as a whole, not just for their political base. And let the rest of us recognize that the actions we take today will determine the kind of nation our children and grandchildren will inherit tomorrow.

Sheryl Jedlinski

Palatine