I read several articles this morning and realized, sadly, there is a common theme running through them all even though on the surface they seem somewhat disparate subjects. The first has to do with the first-of-its-kind lawsuit to go to trial in which a group of Montana students sued the state government over its policies regarding fossil fuels. The second has to do with the Montana governor refusing Federal dollars that would go towards ensuring poor kids in Montana have enough to eat. There were the articles discussing the spate of gun violences across the nation this past weekend in which a number of teenagers were killed or wounded. And finally, there was the article concerning the Republican efforts to enact ‘deep tax cuts’ that would ultimately benefit large corporations and wealthy individuals in the misguided and debunked myth that this will power the economy.
It is a well-established scientific fact that climate change is one of the most important existential problems facing the planet today. It is also a well-established fact that the use of fossil fuels is a major contributing factor to this crisis. A group of Montana students sued the state of Montana contending that, according to the Montana state constitution which says citizens have a right to live in safe environment, the law enacted that states that climate impacts CANNOT be taken into consideration in the approval process for fossil fuel projects is unconstitutional. Just for the record, Montana has never denied a permit for a fossil fuel project. The top state environmental regulator has already stated that the state’s permitting practices would not change even if the students won their lawsuit!
The second article details Governor Gianforte’s refusal to accept Federal dollars that could be used to feed tens of thousands of kids who have food security issues this summer. This is a purely political position as this money will just go to waste if it is not used. Almost everyone would seem to be able to get behind the idea that no kid should go hungry. What the hell? The Republican legislature and the governor spent huge amounts of time and money during this past session fighting culture wars, including trying to overturn the Montana constitutional guarantee of a woman’s right to abortion access, and yet they are refusing to accept Federal dollars to feed the kids already residing in the state. This is nothing short of callous behavior where politics seems more important than feeding kids.
In what has become a daily ritual, the papers and newswires carried multiple stories about all of the shootings around the United States this past weekend. Numerous people were killed and many wounded. Many of these individuals were teenagers! Guns are now the second leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States. In a study in the New England Journal of Medicine several years ago, it was reported that children and adolescents were 36 times as likely to be killed by gun shots as their counterparts in other high-income countries. (emphasis mine) That was a staggering number then and it has gotten worse in the years since. And yet, every single time the subject of any kind of gun control comes up, the Republicans scream ‘2nd Amendment’ and refuse to do anything meaningful to address this problem. Once again, it appears that politics is more important than the safety and security of kids.
Lastly, now that we have gotten past the self-inflicted ‘debt crisis’, the Republicans are proposing deep tax cuts that will ultimately benefit corporations and the wealthy. The whole idea of ‘trickle down’ economics has been debunked multiple times and yet the Republicans (and their wealthy donors) keep beating this drum. Don’t forget, the national debt skyrocketed over 7 trillion dollars under Trump, and one of the major reasons were the ‘Trump tax cuts’. The Republicans, rather than invest in the infrastructure of this country and provide for the well-being of the next generation, they’d rather enact policies that stuff more money into the pockets of the wealthy.
As I stated in the beginning, all these seemingly disparate things have one thing in common – a seeming total disregard for the well-being of the next generation of Americans. It reminds me of the final scene in Gone With The Wind when Rhett Butler is leaving and turns to Scarlett O’Hara and simply says, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
