Saving the Future for Our Children

I hear republican leaders, like Congressman Ryan, Governor Walker, and Speaker Boehner, saying it all the time: “We’re saving the future for our children,” but I am never quite sure what they mean. The use of the first person plural possessive pronoun ― our, suggests that the future is being saved for all the children we have. However, their actions, rhetoric, and policies articulate a different message. They express messages that more accurately resemble “We’re saving the future for my children ― not yours!”

Giving them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they are “saving the future for all children” is still very confusing. Does it mean that they are trying to insure that the United States will be more “user friendly” in 10 – 15 years to our children? And if that’s the case, why is making the United States more user friendly 10 - 15 years from now more important than making the United States more user friendly 10 - 15 minutes from now? Why is creating a United States that will afford a child wonderful opportunities ― if they live long enough to grow-up, more important than ensuring that a child, in an hour from now, doesn’t go to bed hungry, or wake-up eight hours from now, in a cold freezing apartment without breakfast and the loving comfort of grown ups? Why?

It seems to me that the republican saying “We’re saving the future for our children,” isn’t anything more than a big, fat, juicy justification for doing absolutely nothing! It is proactive inactiveness: It makes it seems like they’re doing a great deal for all children, when in fact they’re doing absolutely nothing for most of them. Telling the democrats and others that their plans take effect in the future distracts from the fact that their plan is creating catastrophic misery for many children at present!

If they’re really serious about saving the future for our children, they should change they slogan to say “We’re going to save the future for our children by starting now! Today! This minute!


Then they should physically go into every neighborhood and literally find out ― from the children:

“Who needs the heat turned on?”

“Who is going to be hungry an hour from now, but doesn’t have any food?”

“Whose dad is out of work and it is causing enormous stress on his family?”

Etc.

The republican leaders need to know that “Saving children’s future is far more important than saving the future for children.

Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. Their future is now. So in the words of the Nike slogan “Just do it!” The rest of us will join you!