The Nature of the Great Divide

On his MSNBC news show last evening, Chris Hayes exhibited a chart showing the percent of children in America living in poverty. It showed how child poverty was reduced from almost 20% to 5% by 2020 thanks to the child tax credit. When because of opposition of every Republican senator and Democratic senator Joe Manchin, this provision was not renewed when it expired in that year, child poverty more than doubled. As Hayes’s guest, Senator Cory Booker, noted, failure to renew the credit is a “moral obscenity.” This is particularly true in the context of the Trump tax cuts and tax breaks for corporations and the rich, and especially for the super rich, which have had a far greater impact on the deficit.

There is a great divide in this country, not between “conservatives” and “liberals,” but between people who are cynical, stingy, and greedy and people who care about the common good.