It Never Had to Be This Way
COVID-19 has made it abundantly clear that our country needs to change how our society is structured. For the longest time, our country has been structured around privatization. From utilities like water, electricity, and internet, to healthcare, education, and even prisons. Our government, by and large, has prioritized the profits of private individuals over the good of the public. In fact, our government prioritizes the “free market” so much so that it’s effectively abdicated much of the responsibilities of government to the “free market”. But, what COVID-19 has shown us is that the free market is incapable of dealing with a public crisis. That is where the government is supposed to come in.
According to the CDC, COVID-19 is spread mainly from person-to-person. So, the best way to prevent spreading it is to limit face-to-face contact through social distancing, which wouldn’t be too much to ask if people could afford it. Unfortunately, most people cannot afford to stay home, so they continue to work despite the danger to themselves and their families. And to make matters worse, many who can’t afford to stay home have been laid off. So, those who’ve been living paycheck-to-paycheck, which is approximately 59% of America, are left desperate and unable to pay their bills, much less feed themselves and their families. Hence why food banks throughout the country have been overwhelmed by the increasingly high volume of people trying to get food. Homelessness is on the rise due to people being evicted as a result of unemployment. Hospitals are overwhelmed, unequipped, and undermanned. States and localities are running out of money. And government assistance is damn near impossible to get depending on where you are.
What is important to focus on is that these problems already existed BEFORE the pandemic. More than half the country was already living paycheck-to-paycheck, with no money in their savings, and one emergency expense away from homelessness. Homelessness was already on the rise. Food banks were already overwhelmed due to lack of funding and volunteers, as well as people increasingly being unable to afford food. Hospitals were already overwhelmed due to lack of funding, equipment, and shortage of medical professionals. States and localities were already struggling due to lack of funding. The number of people unable to afford utilities like water, electricity, and internet was already growing. Government assistance was already incredibly difficult to obtain by design. People were already struggling to afford healthcare, car insurance, student loan payments, and so on. All COVID-19 has done is push our country that was already teetering over the edge off the cliff. And the tragedy of it all is that it never had to be this way.
Even before the pandemic, the government could have already ensured people were paid enough to live on, not just barely survive. The government, especially the federal government, could have always ensured that state and local governments were funded. That hospitals were funded, sufficiently manned, and well equipped to deal with an influx of patients. That no one went homeless or without food. That people had water, electricity, and internet. That people had healthcare, insurance (car, life, home, etc.), and education without debt. Even now, during the pandemic, our government could pay literally everyone more than enough to stay home for as long as necessary to get the virus under control. All these things were always possible because the money, resources, and manpower were always there. But, our elected officials, political think tanks, and mainstream media pundits thought otherwise.
“We can’t afford it”, they would say.
“Why should I pay for other people’s stuff?”, they would argue.
“That’s just not possible here.” they would posit
“We’re too big and diverse!” they would shout
The reasons why the government should not provide anything to people were plenty. So, time and again, the government has been gutted and made inefficient and ineffective. Unemployment, housing assistance, social security, healthcare, tax collection, you name it. Any service the government could provide, any responsibility the government was supposed to uphold, was all deliberately made harder to obtain by people who believed that these things were not the governments responsibilities. That the “free market” was the most efficient and effective way to solve problems and keep the country going. And if anyone could not make it, that was their own fault. It is not the government’s responsibility to help them. Unless they are a corporation, in which case they would receive immediate and unlimited money and support from the government. Because without those corporations, without those “job creators”, the country would fall apart anyways. And now, thanks to COVID-19, those beliefs have been put to the ultimate test. And the results? They were all wrong and the free market has failed.
People understandably want to “get back to normal”. Hell, that’s Joe Biden’s entire presidential campaign slogan, “A return to normalcy”. But the hard truth is, there is no going back. And even then, there was nothing worth going back to. We are in uncharted territory now, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.
The way our country was structured was never sustainable. And now it has reached its limits. It never had to be this way, but that does not mean it is too late to change. Our country cannot afford for our government to be underfunded, inefficient, and ineffective. Our country cannot continue to be led by people who do not believe in government. Our country cannot afford to keep prioritizing the profits of individuals over the commonwealth. Our country cannot afford incremental change to stave off the inevitable. Our country needs radical change, and it needed it yesterday. And anyone who says otherwise needs to step down and get out of the way.
