“Happy New Year! It’s got to be better than 2020.”
How often have you heard that lament in the last couple of weeks? 2020 is over!
I don’t want to talk about it! I don’t want to write about it! It’s over! I’m
giving myself only three months this year to become accustomed to writing 2020
2021 on checks and other documents. I usually take longer to develop the muscle
memory.
For anything to get better, or worse, something has
to change. So the only way 2021 will be a better year is if we change the
behavior that made the last years such a mess. No change, no change!
We have been a two-party country for many years now,
but I cannot remember a time when they tried so hard to pull the country apart.
Seventy million people still believe the last election was a fraud. Even
Members of Congress, who fear being primaried, are supporting efforts to
overturn the election, in spite of the proven legitimacy of the vote in every
state. They are willing to tempt the destruction of our democracy to keep their
jobs. While they can claim the rules allow for questioning a State’s certified
election results, there is a faint scent of sedition in their efforts. We are
not born this way; it isn’t natural. We have to be carefully taught to hate at
this level.[i] So
let’s move forward into a new era, not a Biden era necessarily, but a New
American era. We can do this!
We are not perfect, but we strive to be better today
than yesterday, and more so tomorrow. It’s in our DNA! That is why we were
sent, to be that beacon on the hill that showed the oppressed, those yearning
to be free, how it could be so for them too. Let us transform the image into
reality. In his book, The Soul of America
– The Battle for Our Better Angels,[ii]
Jon Meacham urges us to remember what makes us Americans: the constant striving
for equality for everyone, the ongoing efforts to help our neighbors, and the
willingness to work with those with whom we disagree, to come to the best
agreements for our time. Let us find our soul this year!
Parchment in the vault of the National Archives
reads, “All men are created equal.”[iii]
We can do better this year. Inequality is not new. Historical tension
between those who succeed greatly, whether financially, professionally, or
politically, and those who choose other routes has proven a challenge for our
republic. That tug is greatest for those forced to struggle on an uneven
playing field. The pandemic is teaching us about the wide and deep disparity
among our citizens. We should right our wrongs.
Millions of children attend inferior schools. Others
have insufficient broadband to use home-based learning effectively; others
don’t have adequate computer hardware. While the kids will go back to
in-classroom learning sometime this year, pedagogy has changed forever. We can
level the playing field of education. We can help more families to have access
to fresh food so that children don’t have to rely on the schools and libraries
for their daily nutrition. We can do more to train parents how to read to their
kids, to help them with learning challenges, to make sure they are healthy,
have glasses, and have other medical needs met. We can do that. Let’s!
We can change the homeownership paradigm for
lower-income people and people of color so that they can join the middle class
more easily. We should put an end to redlining and the flagrant abuse of the
lending systems. We can make it happen!
We must get our people back to work. The stock
markets’ record highs simply illuminate how little it represents the economy of
the country. While the top 10% see portfolios grow, millions are out of work
through no fault of their own. Hundreds of thousands line up every day for free
food so they can feed their families. We must create jobs to replace those that
will not come back after the pandemic; mostly low skilled jobs. We can retrain
millions of people with new skills. We have done it before. We can do it again.
Let’s!
Too many people do not have access to high-quality
healthcare. Millions lost access when they lost their jobs due to the covid-19
shutdowns. Why must employment status regulate our access to wellness? The
solutions aren’t simple and many people don’t want everyone to have good
healthcare, but these roadblocks can be overcome in a compassionate and rich
country that should be a model for the world, but isn’t. We can fix this
national disgrace. We can help our neighbors get good healthcare when they need
it. Let’s do it!
This year, we can focus on reducing the wealth
disparity gap. Redistribution of wealth is a touchy subject, but one that needs
to be faced every few generations. For the most part, the richest people in
America started with a dream, an idea, and built companies that hired thousands
of people, and in many cases changed the way the world works. They deserve
their rewards. At the same time, however, they built their status with the help
of those who worked for them. They had the help of willing legislators at
local, state, and national levels. They need to contribute more to the society
that lets them be so successful. Most of them agree with this idea.
The wealth gap is wide and deep in the US. Many
retired people live quite well on our pensions, social security, and some investments.
We may not see the difficulties faced by people who have no defined benefit
programs, who work for companies that can’t afford health insurance for their
employees, and who work for minimum wages. Work itself has changed and the
chronic unemployed numbers hover above extreme. This year we need to ask
ourselves if we want to perpetuate a system that has less than one percent of
the population, 200,000 people, owning more wealth than the 110,000,000 people
at the bottom of the wealth chart. Consider an employee who makes $137,700 per
year who will pay $8,537 in Social Security taxes, and the person earning
$1,00,000 who will only pay $8,537 in Social Security taxes. Shouldn’t a person
making a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of income into the SS
pot? This would be a good year to start to create a more equitable economic
system. We don’t expect that everyone will have an equal outcome, but we should
expect equitable pay back into the system that allowed them to succeed. We can do this!
When 2021 is over, I don’t want to be tired. I
stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, mostly to see the year out rather
than the New Year in. Virtual is not the same as hundreds of thousands of
people in Times Square, on the bridges of Sydney, the Strip in Vegas. When I
stay up late at the end of this year, I want to be with lots of people, hale
and hearty; a night filled with noise, with good friends, maybe even in a
tuxedo. I don’t want much, really, just an end to the pandemic, a unified
country, and a government that focuses on the good. Mostly, though, I want us to
be America again, a light unto the world. It could be a great year because we
know what changes we need to make, and we can make those changes if we set our
minds to it. We can, really!
Let’s!
[i] Rogers & Hammerstein, South Pacific, 1949, New York
[ii] Jon Meacham, The Soul of America, Random House, 2018, New York
[iii] Declaration of Independence, In Congress July 4, 1776
