Last week, Senator Warnock authored an op-ed appearing in USA Today connecting how decades of our country’s affordability crisis have changed our relationship with our neighbors
The op-ed follows the Senator’s keynote speech at the Center for American Progress in December of last year
USA Today: America has an economic fever. Helping people is the cure
Senator Reverend Warnock: “The reality is that the cost of living is out of control and the middle class is disappearing. There is a growing sense that our best days are behind us, that even if we work our hardest, our children will fall behind”
Washington, D.C. – Last week, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) wrote an op-ed offering a new perspective on the twin spiritual and affordability crises plaguing the United States. The article was published in USA Today and argued that the ongoing affordability crisis has created a spiritual crisis in America.
“Our country is attempting to put on a brave face despite a collective pain we have not quite named, but the reality is that the cost of living is out of control and the middle class is disappearing. There is a growing sense that our best days are behind us, that even if we work our hardest, our children will fall behind,” wrote Senator Warnock.
The piece also highlights how decades of politicians failing to center the people they serve have undermined the American Dream, created a cycle of division and despair, and ultimately led to the deep divisions and economic disparity we see today.
“The uncomfortable truth is, for decades, America has suffered from a low-grade fever that has gnawed away at the promise of the American dream. The puny language and vocabulary of partisan politics is not up to the task of this moment. What ails us is deeper,” SenatorWarnock continued.
The article concludes with Senator Warnock proposing more creative and aggressive solutions.
“Our economic needs are inherently spiritual. Only when we address these needs can we begin to rebuild trust in one another. Only then can we once again begin to see our neighbors as crucial to our own success and consider the opportunities their children have as if they were our own. To truly fix our spiritual crisis, we must restore the promise of the American dream.”
See below Senator Warnock’s Op-Ed published in USA Today:
America has an economic fever. Helping people is the cure.
America has suffered from a low-grade fever that has gnawed away at the promise of the American dream.
“I don’t know what’s wrong, but I don’t feel good.”
We have all said it about our health. You know the feeling when you wake up, and something just doesn’t feel right?
That’s where our country is right now and has been for some time. It’s the unease I hear from my congregation and neighbors in my home state of Georgia. It’s the shared ache and chills of a nation that senses something deeper than just our politics is broken.
America has a low-grade fever.
Our country is attempting to put on a brave face despite a collective pain we have not quite named, but the reality is that the cost of living is out of control and the middle class is disappearing. There is a growing sense that our best days are behind us, that even if we work our hardest, our children will fall behind.
What keeps me up at night is the fact that it would be harder for a kid today to do what I did years ago, going from public housing to the United States Senate.
The uncomfortable truth is, for decades, America has suffered from a low-grade fever that has gnawed away at the promise of the American dream. The puny language and vocabulary of partisan politics is not up to the task of this moment. What ails us is deeper. America is struggling with a spiritual crisis.
If people cannot have faith in economic opportunity, they put faith in strong men with strong words and even stronger anger. It is why we are caught in the throes of a politics defined by rage, anger, division and fear.
It’s why we see armed and masked officers by our schools and churches, why troops patrol American streets. All of those images are meant to convince us that we are at war with one another.
This manufactured crisis creates the context needed to move wealth from the bottom to the top. Socialism for the rich. Robin Hood’s credo in reverse.
The president wants us to be angry at those who have the least. What we all should be angry about is the fact that too many can’t afford the health care they need to live, and that millions of young people can’t afford a home.
Corporate profits keep hitting record highs while everything costs more. Yet wages have flatlined.
We should be furious that our children will face greater challenges and have fewer opportunities than we did. Long before I was elected to represent the great state of Georgia in the U.S. Senate or was the pastor at the pulpit made famous by Martin Luther King Jr., I was a Head Start kid.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared: “Five- and 6-year-old children are inheritors of poverty’s curse and not its creators. Unless we act, these children will pass it on to the next generation, like a family birthmark.”
The Head Start program, created by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, gave a preschool-age child like me a chance by stirring a love for learning and closing the word gap that is too common among poor kids. In America, your parents’ income shouldn’t determine your outcome.
That education, aided by parents who were poor but had good sense, helped get me to where I am today. Pell grants and low-interest student loans enabled me to make my way through Morehouse College.
I am a product of good public policy that reflected the covenant we have with one another. I know that all our children can succeed if we give them a chance.
I’m a Matthew 25 Christian: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me.”
These are basic spiritual needs that speak to what our government could and should be doing for the people.
Our economic needs are inherently spiritual. Only when we address these needs can we begin to rebuild trust in one another.
Only then can we once again begin to see our neighbors as crucial to our own success and consider the opportunities their children have as if they were our own. To truly fix our spiritual crisis, we must restore the promise of the American dream.
I am committed to being among those voices summoning all of us to that higher calling.
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