Personally, I’m tired of scrutinizing the outflow of my tax dollars, especially to the needy or underserved - their happiness and integrity is as important as my own, even if it is assumed that they are not ‘incented’ to work harder to contribute to a higher tax base down the road. If you want to look at this from a purely fiscal standpoint (which is totally understandable), it would seem to be in everybody’s best interest to make sure that all socio-economic classes are healthy and strong so that they can contribute to our GDP in positive ways.

This does not make me a liberal, left-wing, socialist, Democrat or Republican or any other baseless designation. It simply makes me human. It also calls into question the idea that we’ve lost faith in our own people on account of the fact that we’ve been blinded by abject greed.

Which leads to a much bigger point: with the steady erosion of the middle class (at least what is perceived to be...), perhaps we we are getting closer to a ‘flat world’ of social participation. We are starting to blend our personal interests with those that affect the corporate bottom line. Instead of making this an issue of whether or not privatization should dictate the ebb-and-flow of commerce, perhaps we should look at what corporations should play in conjunction with government agencies and special interests groups. Ok, fine, this is idealistic, but then again, we said the same thing about our current president before he was elected and look what happened there: the people spoke out and opposing sides banded together.

Look, I don’t have the answers. But I do know one thing. Pointing fingers and making this a political debate isn’t going to affect change. With a depleted surplus, the money has to come from somewhere, so the people that are capable should shoulder the responsibility until we can transfer the access and tools to those who can contribute on their own.

What do you think?