Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Fiscal Cliff


I feel like the fiscal cliff situation isn’t getting as much attention as it should be, at least not from my generation. I’m not saying that no one cares I’m just saying that not enough of us do.  I think that we all still have some form of blind faith in our political leaders; that they’ll take care of what needs to be done. I will be honest I really didn’t know much about the fiscal cliff situation until recently. Now that I see the consequences I feel like I have to say something about it. For those that still don’t know, don’t worry we all will soon enough if an agreement can’t be met.

Paychecks will be smaller for starters. For the wealthy this isn’t much of an issue but for the working class living paycheck to paycheck this could be life changing. Congress has had such a nonchalant attitude about this and it’s sickening. Obviously they have had a long time to get this figured out and here we are with less than a week to go until it’ll be too late.

Why should the politicians care? At the end of the day they’re still making a six-figure income. So why should the rest of us losing money be any of their concern? The law of the land seems to be that if it isn’t your problem then you probably don’t care about it.

I mean just think about all of the other problems going on in our country that nobody cares about, that is, unless it affects them directly. The overall lack of caring in this country is at times beyond belief. Kurt Cobain said it best when he said, “My generations apathy. I’m disgusted with it. I’m disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.”

No one is innocent this statement is true for all of us. No one cares about crime until they get robbed. They don’t care about guns until someone they know gets shot and killed. No one cares about drugs until their child becomes an addict.

We will care about the fiscal cliff if an agreement isn’t met. Maybe not all of us but a lot of us, programs helping the poverty stricken have more of an effect on society then you think. That program that’s feeding the poor is keeping someone from breaking into your house so that they can eat. The intervention programs for youth in the inner cities is keeping that kid from joining a gang and either killing another kid or getting himself killed. The housing programs, they're keeping a homeless man from squatting in the vacant house next door.

Everything trickles down just like the rain. It might only hit the top of the glass but eventually it’s going to reach the bottom and touch everything along the way. Life’s not all about you and me. It’s about all of us coming together to make this country great again. It’s about using your voice to make a change.

Today it’s the fiscal cliff but tomorrow or the next day or maybe next week it will be something different. The politicians aren’t going to care until we make them care. Until they realize that we will not continue to be quiet as our lives are downgraded because of their indecision. Not being able to come to an agreement is not an acceptable statement. I don’t want to hear that because if they really were trying then this would have already been dealt with. 

We live in a country that thrives to be the best and yet we, the citizens, continue to settle for less. Have we all forgotten the American dream? Or have we simply given up on it?

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