Life With….

April 5, 2011

Senator Richard Burr
217 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Senator Kay Hagan
521 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative David Price
U.S. House of Representatives
2162 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator Burr, Senator Hagan and Representative Price:

I understand that you all are in the midst of important budgetary discussions for continuing this fiscal year and for the next one. I do not want you take this letter as a call for the status quo, or for a call for us not to reexamine the way we fund defense, other agencies and how we fund and what cuts are needed to entitlement programs. These are important discussions we need to have, and while difficult, they need to be addressed rationally. At the same time, there are many policy riders and issues that should not be a part of this debate as their importance to actual budgetary problems is miniscule there are a few things that I would like you, my elected representatives to know my stance on as these items come up for debate again.

1) Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood, whose name is culturally tied to the abortion debate, offers a lot more then low cost abortions.

While the abortion debate may not be able to be solved today, as there is little to know middle ground on the extremes on either side, most Americas stand in favor of some constraints on extremely late term abortion unless the life of the mother is at stake. Most of us realize this is a complex issue, one that will not be solved easily. There are health reasons to get abortions, there are religious reasons not to. Abortions, in some form or another have been around since the beginning of time, and they will continue to be, even if they were made illegal they would continue and we would return to conditions where people desperate for this risk their lives. It is a private decision.

Regardless, no federal money goes to fund abortions done at Planned Parenthood. It goes to education. To screen women’s health (and men’s) for those who either can’t afford insurance, don’t have access to reproductive health insurance, or don’t have doctors available to them on their plan or in their locality. It teaches reproductive issues, health issues, and educates, it covers contraception for teens scared to see their parents. In short it addresses a need in society, and the federal dollars don’t support the controversial portion of the mission (for better written information see this site).

To claim that all money is fungible opens up a lot of other issues for debate. For example – we fund certain religiously affiliated institutions for charities, school lunches, scientific research, etc. The money is specifically not to be used for religious teaching, but if all money is fungible isn’t it being done so; doesn’t’ this raise issues. All sides can, I am sure, point to a many examples like this, why not avoid the argument in the future, acknowledge the good Planned Parenthood does, and continue to fund it, with the restriction on abortion in place for years remaining in place.

2) Funding for the Arts and NPR

Studies have shown that the arts enrich us, they lead to innovation, and I even recall one that said that countries that stop funding the arts in support of defense are on the road to collapse (I believe it was focused on Rome). All of this may be true. It may also be true that promotion of the arts leads to tourism, and other forms of spending money that lead to other economic gains (For example see here for a piece on arts and crime rates see here). Even so there are other reasons to support the arts.

The arts, and arts education, enrich and reflect us. By this I mean contemporary arts preserve our culture for the future, while exposing it back to others and ourselves around the world. They reflect the communities we live in the, the people we are and our values as well as our challenges. Arts offer tangible rallying points in times of hardships, as people look to symbols of ourselves to cling to, and and they challenge us to live up to the values we aspire to and to examine what those values are. As one professor I had in college put it, when describing how art can move us, Norman Rockwell a sentimental painter who depicted our values as we wanted them to be, also challenges us and reflected problems back to us in ways that make avoiding issues no longer possible (see for example his Murder in Mississippi (Sothern Justice) done after the murders of three civil rights workers in 1965 or his The Problem We all Live With a picture, unlike many contemporaneous photographs, told from the height of the six year old girl being escorted to school in New Orleans by police due to fears of violence as desegregation was ordered).

Arts challenge us and they open us to new perspectives. A play by Shakespeare, a poetry slam, modern music they all tell who we are, who we were, and expose us to new viewpoints. Without the arts this dialogue may be lost, and without arts education it surely will be. While I agree that arts funding should go to all forms of political dialogue, it should not be limited to just those, or to just high art or just to the NEA, promoting and supporting the arts is important to a vibrant society, and this should be done federally, state wide, locally, corporately and individually. An active arts scene is paramount to have a functioning democracy.

As for NPR – it provides more in-depth reporting then most private news organizations can afford to. Its arts and cultural reporting are vital, and local coverage for weather, traffic and news is unbiased and necessary. I have driven through areas of the South where NPR is only news radio I can find, and without federal funding, those communities would lose it entirely. Thus losing access to great, mostly unbiased reporting (regardless of their private opinions) and access to the world. This is a service, like the arts that is promotes our culture to ourselves and to the world – and one which we must support.

3) Cuts in Environmental Regulations

Unlike the previous two examples, I am not going to go to far in depth here. The environment is being harmed; science has proven this. Businesses, to their credit, are typically out to maximize their own profit, but sometimes this maximization comes at the harm of future generations. Regulation helps to check this, allowing them to maximize profits while hurting us less. This is good for all. Without the EPA and its air quality regulations, I for one would be unable to breathe as I learned during a trip abroad to a city without similar air regulations. All individuals deserve the right to breathe, drink clean water and go outside without being harmed by pollutants. Right now we mostly can let’s keep it that way.

This is an issue that affects us, and affects the world. We need incentives to
reduce consumption; we need to work with other countries for standards and protocols and to help the whole world thrive in harmony. Part of this includes eliminating our current farm subsidy program, cutting back on major agriculture fertilizers, and increasing mileage per gallon. Other parts are retrofitting older homes, reducing and reusing. All agencies of the government have work to do.

There are areas here that, I am sure are redundant; others that may be right for budget cuts, but hamstringing the EPA when it works to counterbalance problems that harm the health and safety of us all I s not the solution. This one is pure common sense – regulate to help the future.

4) Foreign Aid

Foreign aid comprises a tiny portion of the budget – and yet its affect is massive. We promote humanitarian causes that save lives and promote basic health and hygiene aboard. We respond, as most people in America want us to, to disasters abroad like the Haitian Earthquake or the Japanese Tsunami. Not only do these reflect our values of aiding others and promoting human rights around the world and respecting our common humanity but also these programs help to build good will. This good will is sorely needed when we face so much turbulence abroad. The aid work we do in areas like Pakistan and Afghanistan aids our military mission there and good will around the world in general aids our national security.

Again, of course there are bureaucratic inefficiencies, redundancies and the like, and these should be rooted out – but the overall funding should not be reduced. The money can be used to father the mission, our values, and safety and promote our culture and good name worldwide.

5) A Balanced Budget Amendment

This is an issue that sounds great in a sound bite but is unrealistic. While I know we need to respond to the current crisis, and reduce spending while increasing revenue (hard for someone who thinks taxation is high already to admit, though there are many, many corporate loopholes) a balanced budget amendment hamstrings us too much in the future (for more on the current budget proposals see here). We do not know what, if any crisis will arise in the future – but we need to have the flexibility to respond to it, and unfortunately that may mean debts. That may mean we spend more then we take in, while also having to pay off old debts and fund other areas of government. We should work to reduce the deficit, pay as we go, and all but do so without a modification to the Constitution in this instance.

6) A Taxpayer Receipt.

I recently used the Third Way’s taxpayer receipt, which attempts to show how much various federal programs and agencies get of what I paid this year per dollar. This was enlightening, to me, and I follow politics closely. I think that if people had a sense of the proportional spending, it may make the debate more about the real problems and issues and less about these small policy programs, like NPR, foreign aid, and Planned Parenthood who make up a minuscule portion of the budget (for more on this see here).

All text and copyrights preserved by the author 02csb For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Courtney Brown

Create Your Badge  All text and copyrights preserved by the author for words and original pictures and may not be used without author's permission. For more information visit http://www.peebesalgy.com Follow me on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/peebesalgy or contact me directly through http://www.peebesalgy.com/blog/contact-me/ Courtney Brown | Create Your Badge