We All Built This

I feel that given Mitt Romney's recent remarks regarding the forty seven percent of Americans who seem to be nothing but societal leeches in the eyes of the modern right, the concept of an "entitlement society," and the role of government is of incredible importance. Although Romney's video may have stated in slightly more blunt terms how many conservatives seem to feel about the less prosperous half of the US population, it certainly isn't a new or even a particularly unpopular idea.

Some of these ideas do hold weight. About forty seven percent of Americans do not pay income taxes, and a staggering number of people do receive federal aid in some form or another. However, it seems incredibly ignorant to suggest that these forty seven percent are all in “Obama's pocket.” In fact, the breakdown of this demographic is rather interesting. Of this forty seven percent, over half still pay payroll taxes for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The rest are divided among the elderly receiving Social Security benefits and households with income less than 20,000 per year, according to a breakdown from the Tax Policy Institute.

So the question is this: which of these forty seven percent are in the pocket of the president? The elderly in the US certainly haven't historically been in the pockets of the democrats, and while low income voters tend to vote more liberally, the poorest state in the US has been Mississippi for quite some time (very much a red state). In fact, most of the nation’s ten poorest states have historically voted conservatively. So the question remains, if these forty seven percent are clearly not write offs for the Republican party, why would Romney make such a statement?

This brings me back to my earlier point. I mentioned that a staggering number of people receive government support in one way or another. In fact, that number is nearly 312 million people, or in other terms, nearly one hundred percent of the US population.

We all drive on roads, eat subsidized food, and enjoy the benefits of the FDA monitoring what we put in ourselves (I rather like not being poisoned by my medicine). We enjoy the protection of the strongest military in the world, and we watch with pride as NASA lands a rover on Mars. Perhaps the key word here is pride. We as a nation did those things, together. We have every right to be proud of our incredible number of collective accomplishments. However, in addition we've put together a medical and monetary support system to ensure our senior citizens no longer have to live in poverty, and we created a support system to ensure that it is almost impossible for children or adults in the US to starve to death.

The Republican National Convention launched with the theme "We Built This" (obviously jabbing at Obama's out of context statement regarding aid in any form) but I think that's a very important message. We built this nation, the roads, the rockets, and the support systems for the less prosperous. While yes, there is a collective role to make sure the things we build are in the best interest of everyone (why we have a welfare to work program, and why that policy deserves the attention and editing it gets) nothing is gained by demonizing the individuals that benefit from what we create together. I drive on roads and eat FDA approved food, some use food stamps to feed their families, and Mitt Romney enjoyed nearly four million dollars in tax breaks.

So yes, maybe welfare, Social Security, discretionary funding, and Medicare need altering: all policy constantly does. And yes, maybe the Bush era tax cuts need revisiting too. However, we built this, we can change it, and every time the word "us" is replaced with the word "them" we lose a little more of our identity as a nation. We built this together. We'll keep fixing it together. I sincerely hope we can keep our identity as an "us" along the way.