Out of Focus and Touch or Out of Reach?

A November 18, 2009 editorial, “Hungry in the United States”, posted in The New York Times, raised a few questions for me. Has the responsibilities of our government to its citizen changed? Has Congress lost focus; is it out of touch with the needs of the people? Or perhaps the question is: have our national issues grown beyond an executive resolution? If Congress is the factory where America takes its problems to, the output or product is indicating something is broke.

It is amazing to see the factory focused on producing a bailout product for big businesses when a study conducted inside the factory by the Department of Agriculture shows a record number of Americans struggling with getting sufficient food. This is nothing new to the factory worker. Before economists identified the beginning of the recession, two-thirds of families with children did not receive adequate nutrition. It interesting to see the most powerful country in the world going broke and its children going hungry. What’s even more interesting, whether you agree or disagree, is that the factory has produced a plan to address its financial woes but not to address the food insecurities of its people.

The workers, within the Congressional factory, seem to be out of touch with the needs of those whom they are supposed to be producing a product for. The new and improved Health Care product that millions need and are waiting on is being held up on an option that will benefit all. All with the exception of the competing private businesses whose voice can be heard by those working inside the factory over the cry of its citizen in need.

The rise in the number of people, according to factory data, who lack access to adequate nutrition rose to 49 million in 2008, raising the banner that every American is going to need some form of health care. Skipped meals and cheap food with low to no nutritional value are contributors to poor health. Are the factory workers so out of touch they can’t see the urgency to pass a health care bill with a public option, freeing up the factory to work on other products such as hunger in Americans? President Obama has made a commitment to wipe our child hunger by 2015; I hope we are not still bailing out and reforming.

Are our issues beyond the factory’s ability? Will the factory be able to retool itself in time to efficiently and effectively produce a product that is right for all America? Or will we sell out to the highest bidder?