Biden’s climate, child poverty proposals could undo years of bad economic policy

Two parts of President Biden’s large budget — those addressing child poverty and climate change — merit careful consideration by all Kentuckians, regardless of party affiliation. As a child psychologist, I’ve worked or volunteered for over 50 years, mostly in Kentucky, with poor families and children. Research on poverty consistently documents the increased risk of damage, shrunken horizons, and distressing outcomes that result from growing up amid family stress, instability, and deprivation. I’ve seen poverty’s impact on children I came to know and serve.

The President’s proposals for permanent child payments and tax credits for families, for affordable and enhanced child-care, and greatly expanded preschool offer the promise of relief from conditions stunting the potential for millions of American children. In Kentucky we have more than our share of poor and near-poor families that stand to benefit mightily if the President’s proposals become a reality.

As clear in the Aug. 6 report of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, unchecked climate change menaces the lives and well-being of all our children and grandchildren. Evidence of the reality and impending hazards of man-made climate change has reached the point where politicians who fail to confront it are literally dangerous.

Presently, Central Kentucky’s congressional delegation — Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul and Representative Andy Barr — appears positioned to oppose both the child poverty and climate change initiatives. They cite budgetary concerns, an insupportable increase in the national debt, or the specter of higher taxes. Balanced against the threats to our children and our very planet, these priorities are beyond puzzling. We live in a nation of staggering economic inequality with ample surplus wealth to address both poverty and climate change. More than a result of “entrepreneurial genius,” American inequality is a product of government policy. Through three decades following the World War II, our economy flourished and jobs were created while marginal tax rates for the wealthy reached to 90% and never dipped below 70%. For the last forty years, taxes on America’s financial elite have been ratcheted down and Biden’s proposed tax increases for the wealthy are truly small compared to past rates. It is hard for most of us to grasp the wealth of America’s financial elite. I try to reduce such wealth to numbers I can understand—to spend ten million dollars over 20 years you’d have to spend at the rate $1,370 a day; to spend a billion over the same period—you’d need to spend $136,900 a day.

When in the military, I swore to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, the same oath taken by our elected officials. Working to realize the promise of our Constitution is at the core of citizenship. Many of us memorized the Constitution’s preamble in middle or high school. That pre-amble sets forth our national aspirations, including to “establish justice…promote the general Welfare…and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” What is just about pandering to wealthy political donors while so many of our children face a stunted future? What “general Welfare” is promoted or “Blessings of Liberty” are secured, if we pass to our posterity an overheated, dramatically less livable and warring planet?

Will the elected representatives for Central Kentucky put our children, our planet and their constitutional responsibilities ahead of party politics? If history is any guide, they probably won’t unless they hear from us BIG TIME. There are individual actions we can all take to exercise our responsibility for our children and our planet! An absolutely urgent one is letting our elected representatives know how much we care. We can’t complain of Congressional irresponsibility if we are silent! The contact information for your Congressional representatives is as close as your cell phone.

T. Kerby Neill is a retired child psychologist, community volunteer, and board member of the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice.