(Note: I'm running for Town Council in Berkeley Heights, NJ this year. My website will have an online contribution system soon!)
By Stephen Yellin
In this era of economic hardship, it seems our nation's leaders have either forgotten - or simply despise - what the real deficit is in America today. Across our country, "austerity" is the order of the day. Social services are slashed, the rights of workers gutted, all women's rights to equality and autonomy stifled.
What these so-called "fiscal conservatives" - in Congress, state legislatures and even some in the White House - simply don't understand is that, even now, they are racking up a tremendous deficit in our country. That deficit was described so eloquently by Franklin Delano Roosevelt 75 years ago: "a deficit in the books of human fortitude".
Read on for FDR's thoughts and some additional ones of my own.
On June 27th, 1936, President Roosevelt accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for a 2nd term. Most of you are probably aware that "FDR", rather than simply promote his success to date in battling the Great Depression, launched a full-throated assault on the "economic royalists" who had caused the Depression, and inflicted untold misery on the American people in the process.
Yet FDR's speech was not merely a blistering critique of America's ills, nor simply a political call to arms. In the latter part of his speech (you can listen to and read it here), this remarkable man spoke of the moral obligation government has to its citizens. He did so by evoking a trio of themes, rooted in the "Social Gospel" and its Progressive Era-mentality of doing good deeds for their own sake.
"The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe," FDR asserted, "sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster."
A minute or two later, he went on to say this:
It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.
We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith—in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.
Hope-renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity—in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.
We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.
We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.
In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.
I have emphasized the 2nd to last line of this segment because it struck me, as I read it, just how pertinent FDR's beliefs are to today's political climate. Across our country, the very philosophy of the New Deal - and its many accomplishments - is being spat upon by right-wing Republicans and, sadly enough, some Democrats too. These "leaders" have ignored the root cause of our nation's ills, and have attacked the very people they ought to be assisting in this difficult time.
Even now, as Washington debates how to reduce the federal budget, and how deep the wounds to our society must be, millions are out of work. Millions more are working part-time, or have multiple jobs, or are barely scraping by. Meanwhile, the "economic royalists" FDR spoke of in 1936 have returned, all too publicly, with a vengeance. Yet rather than confront the crisis with tried-and-tried fiscal policies - investing in our people for an economic recovery - government has gone in the opposite direction. In 2011, our leaders are acting like "bottom line" corporate CEOs, not representatives of a democratic society where We The People matter most.
Franklin Roosevelt warned us in 1936: "We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude." State by state, as well as in Washington, our leaders would do well to remember those words. They are, in far too many cases, failing the "moral test of government" (in Hubert Humphrey's words). They are tearing down the temple of faith, hope and charity our 32nd President helped to build.
When Scott Walker and John Kasich seek to annihilate the rights of workers to organize, and find a better life for themselves and their families, they violate the temple of faith, hope and charity .
When Chris Christie slashes aid for our poor and elderly, and spits on the work of teachers, he violates the temple of faith, hope and charity.
When Sam Brownback of Kansas, Bobby Jindal and - my God, far too many other states! - make it impossible for reproductive health care to exist for women in a dire hour of need, they violate the temple of faith, hope and charity.
When Eric Cantor refuses to send emergency aid to tornado victims in Missouri because it will cost money, he violates the temple of faith, hope and charity.
When Paul Ryan proposes to end Medicare rather than tax millionaires, he violates the temple of faith, hope and charity.
All this, sadly, is not limited to Republicans. President Obama has placed major changes to Social Security and Medicare "on the table" as he seeks to reach a consensus with Congressional Republicans on reducing the National Debt. That debt, of course is a problem, and it should be reduced.
Yet surely we have better ways of wiping out our monetary obligations without wiping out our moral obligations to our people. Of course, we liberals and progressives do have better ways to do this. We wove them into the fabric that became our nation's "safety net": expanding the Middle Class, reducing poverty, rebuilding our infrastructure, encouraging innovation and creativity in education, and much more. We built the temple of "faith, hope and charity" that FDR lay the cornerstone for in the darkest days of our nation. We can - and must - do it again.
Before ending with the immortal rallying cry of America's "rendezvous with destiny", President Roosevelt had this to say about government:
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
I pray fervently that our leaders in Washington and statehouses across America will heed those words. Yet I fear a new "Ice Age" is upon us (tragically ironic in an age of rampant global warming). It can only be averted if the liberals and progressives of America rise up, organize their forces, and "enlist for the duration of the war" (as FDR pledged to do).
I know what side of the war I must be on. So do you, dear reader.