I have been enrolled in a class this year all about active learning strategies in science and math classrooms. This semester we have been watching 7 min clips of each other teach.
I watched footage of my biology colleague using a game with his students. He got them in groups of four, gave them each a straw and a plate full of kidney beans. He said, “alright, you need to fish for the kidney beans using only your straw. Go.” He gave them no other directions. It seemed simple enough. They went at it, giggling, playing, fishing. After a certain amount of time he said, “alright, time. One year has elapsed. If you still have beans on your plate, those fish can reproduce. Put three beans back for every fish in your lake.” 90% of the plates had no beans. The communities were dead because the lakes were dead.
Uncontrollable consumption of resources without regard to the common good is totally unsustainable. I begged this teacher to take his game on the road to congress. I joked I would pay for his flight. The game was so simple yet so effective at illustrating a core tenet of conservation: One cannot use resources selfishly without regard to the common good. To do so is unsustainable.
Make no mistake, this Republican tax scam is a redistribution of wealth. It is just taking the limited resources and supports for low and middle income people and using those cost savings to give tax cuts to already wealthy people. It is pushing the wealth up. They don’t even have the decency to lie well about it. When asking a room full of CEOs what they would do with these corporate tax benefits, none raised their hands for training, growth, or reinvesting in employees.
I feel like we were robbed. In the middle of the night. Of thousands of dollars annually. And spray painted on the walls of our home were slurs against the decisions that built the life we live.
You actually couldn’t craft a tax bill that was more an affront to me personally than the one the two houses of the legislative branch produced. Actually we were robbed once, and I have to say, this tax bill felt more violating. All our robbers scored was some Sudafed and an iPod. GOP congress plans to take thousands of dollars from my middle class blue state family and generally increasing the tax burdens of the middle class in any area with high state and local tax burdens which we have because we want our states to fund education, infrastructure, and technology. And then we give this money to real estate developers and corporations with already astounding amounts of cash. The world’s wealthiest just got even wealthier! The poor and middle class get less! Income inequality that was already breathtakingly large just got insurmountable. America is so great! USA! USA! I can’t wait for Steve Mnuchin’s wife to have her “Let them eat cake” moment of twitter fame. Oh, and let’s eliminate healthcare for 13 million ppl and drill in the arctic for good measure.
Here’s the rub. I live in a blue house in a blue state. I wouldn’t mind paying more taxes if it meant the people of my country would benefit, if they were investments in education, healthcare, green technologies. But they aren’t. They are going to go to already wealthy people who will not reinvest in the American workforce, will not innovate to address climate change, or enhance health benefits for employees, and certainly will not provide a free college education for the children or enhanced technical retraining for their employees. They will probably just invest it, give CEOs pay raises, or do stock buy backs, you know, what corporations and rich people do.
But rich people, I just have one question. How much money is enough for you? Are you proud of what kicking 13 million people out of health coverage, limiting the already limited disposable income of middle income consumers and their ability to save for retirement, adding 1.5-2 trillion dollars to the national deficit will do to the security of your country? Are you proud that in exploding the deficit, you are also paving the way to dismantle the social safety net that has been the backbone for middle America for decades? Do you think bankrupting your employees with the new added burdens of inflated medical costs, higher tax burdens, and elder care for their financially insecure retired parents will somehow make them more productive?
And Republicans, why the speed of light legislative process with no public hearings? Why the immediate implementation that leaves financial planning for every American in limbo over the next two weeks , a time when generally most Americans prefer not to worry and focus on spending their few vacation days catching up with friends and family with whom they have had little time to interact with so few paid leave days annually? My husband and I are scrambling to figure out if it would actually benefit us to pay our full property tax bill before the year end. Is that possible? Is it deductible? Is it advisable? Who can say? Probably no one who voted on it, that’s for sure.
I guess we all knew it was going to have to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Let’s just hope this sham of a legislative process doesn’t cause too much irreparable damage to the lives of regular people before sensible legislators can regain control and attempt to mitigate the impact. You know, people who actually care about regular people and protecting the nation’s interests, not the donors or worse, their own.
In the meantime, the media must stop use of the term “major legislative victory.” That implies there is something winning about this bill. Nothing in this bill helps the republic to win or rise in stature or status. Instead they must start calling this massive wealth grab by and for the incredibly wealthy a win for the 1%. Or a win for Republican donors. It certainly isn’t a victory for any conservatives who claim to care about the deficit. It certainly isn’t a win for Republicans who favor “regular order.” It certainly isn’t a win for regular people.
I am not even sure Spider-Man can save us. I am sure it is not sustainable. I study biology. #electionshaveconsequences