As a nation we opened the door for the poor through social programs, educational opportunities, and a productive, manufacturing based economy to make sure people could realistically accept the challenge of lifting themselves out of poverty into well paid employment. The resulting growth of the middle class and increases in tax revenue more than offset the cost of the social and educational programs and funded other vital government services and infrastructure to the benefit of the entire country.
Today, however, we are confronted with the results of a shameful, decades long Conservative campaign to dismantle the social support and empowering programs of the American Dream. Their selfish, misguided "reforms" and defunding have done nothing but further impoverish the poor and slammed the door shut on any chance for a better tomorrow. For one third of our fellow countrymen, the Dream is dead.
It is said that a nation can be judged by the lives of its lowest class. You are both judge and jury. What say you?
