Professor Sharon

100 Day Project – Day 16 – 6:23 a.m.

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” — Elizabeth Warren

With the political campaigns heating up for this November and next year, this quote that a friend posted on Facebook seemed to speak to me today. (If you’re keeping count, Day 16 was yesterday – but my internet was down last night when I finally got home.)

Paying it forward to the next child, the next generation: something, I believe that many Americans have forgotten.  We speak often of our devotion to the young; but that’s all we do – speak.  We don’t put our funds there anymore.

One of the myths of child development is that “all children need is love.”  Yep – true, to some extent.  Children need adults who care for them in all that that means, beautiful places to go to school, current tools and equipment to learn by, excellent teachers (the kind I work so hard and such long hours to support and train), and communities that fight for these things.  Nope – “just” love is not everything in this case.  But, so many folks don’t see the connection between their taxes, and the adulthood of the current children; children who will one day be our firefighters, our nursing home caregivers, and our politicians.  It’s sad and infuriating.  Today I’m thinking about stupid politicians, the rich, taxes and the loss of the social contract.