Submitted for Your Approval

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

It felt as if we had stepped into the twilight zone last week. Unexpected and surreal—although not exactly frightening—events were happening, unusual even for these times. It’s been an unreal year, probably the most incredible of our lifetimes. Over 500,000 Americans died. Millions more became deathly ill. Our lives came to a standstill as we found ourselves suspended in a fog of fear and dread. We hunkered down, barricading ourselves at home. But then things got even stranger. 

For the first time in over sixty years, the Senate passed a bill that will cut child poverty nearly in half. This “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” will grant monetary relief to millions of everyday Americans who are not part of the rich elite. It will also extend unemployment benefits, fund schools and colleges, provide vaccinations for the people, and assist small businesses. (https://www.congress.gov/most-viewed-bills)

The House of Representatives passed another bill “The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act” that would require background checks for all firearm purchases and establish a national database for gun ownership. There is yet another bill, “The For the People Act” will seek to ensure election security, protect citizens’ right to vote, reform campaign finance, and to limit gerrymandering by state governments.  

These events seem unreal on at least a few different levels.

First of all, for the past decade or so, with a very few exceptions, the U.S. Congress has moved to pass legislation only slightly more slowly than frozen molasses seeping downhill. Secondly, when recent legislation has made it through our legislative chambers, it rarely—if ever—benefitted the typical American. More often, these new laws addressed tax cuts for the rich or corporate subsidies. Even the first Covid relief bill passed last year, while sending eligible citizens modest relief checks, managed to grant huge corporations like Ruth’s Chris Steak House small business status, making them eligible for hundreds of thousands of dollars of Covid relief money. Government—the corporation’s best friend. 

But now, in the course of a week, we not only have a Congress that is passing legislation at the speed of light, but it is making laws that benefit us, the everyday Americans. What happened? We did elect a Democratic president, but that’s hardly a guarantee for government efficiency. President Obama, working with a Democratic majority in Congress, barely managed to squeak through the Affordable Care Act—a significant law—and got very little else done. Stubborn Republican leadership made sure of that. Today, Democrats hold a majority in the House and the slimmest edge in the Senate, but again—as was the case in 2008 under Obama, not much got done. Why is this year different?

President Biden ran as a moderate, beating out more progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. He promised to design a cohesive national strategy to cope with the pandemic—which he has done already, surpassing the initial goal of one hundred million vaccinated in his first one hundred days. Joe Biden has always championed the little guy, the bullied, the forgotten, and now, as president, he seems to have remembered his promises. A new war of poverty, along with election reform and strengthened background checks, seems to signal a White House commitment to progressive reform.

Before the November election, the Democratic Congress seemed to straddle the middle line, as more progressive voices like Warren, Sanders, and AOC were initially stifled by Speaker Pelosi. But when the congressional rescue plan was unveiled and it became apparent that the bulk of the stimulus money would not end up in corporate coffers, it seemed as if Democrats were showing a more progressive side. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to pass a new minimum wage bill into law. Why now? 

Part of the answer seems to lie in the electorate. An astounding 70% of Americans support the Covid relief bill, including 41% of Republicans. Even so, not one Republican senator voted in favor of the bill. According to a November 2020 Gallup Poll, 57% of Americans want stricter gun laws. According to a February Data for Progress Poll, 70% of Americans want to see election reform before 2022. A Reuters poll states 59% of voters would like to see the minimum wage raised to at least $15 per hour. There is also widespread support for affordable college tuition and health care as well as more aggressive policies addressing climate change. Democrats seem to be working on the novel premise the government should serve the people. Interesting.

Of course, most of this legislation is a reaction to the pandemic. It’s ironic to note that had there been no pandemic or had it been handled less incompetently, many of these reforms might not have happened. Would a bill that will in effect cut child poverty in half have been passed as independent legislation? I’m betting not. Would massive school funding, albeit that most of it will addressing pandemic issues, have passed on its own? Had our previous president not been so grossly incompetent and inhumane, the need for government intervention on behalf of the people would not be so glaringly obvious. It seems as if America may have stumbled its way into reform, wandered into a gray area between to the left of profiteering and corruption. 

Submitted for your approval. A government of the people, by the people, and—most importantly—for the people. A government that follows the dictates of the Preamble to the Constitution to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…”

Is this the surreal existence that has taken us by surprise? Is this the strange and unexpected territory that we feared so?  Is it, as Rod Serling said, “a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition?”

I certainly hope so.