Re: Leonard Pitts’ June 28 column, “Caring for the common good is what we should all have in common“:
Pitts hits the nail squarely. Some reject tax use for feeding and healing poor children. I reject tax use for the greatest subsidy in history, more roads for more cars, as well as weapons for more wars, and bailouts for private giants that betray the conservative mantra of “personal responsibility.” I want to feed, clothe, house, heal and educate my countrymen. Where’s my “tax revolt” movement?
The U.S. Constitution’s preamble promises to “insure domestic tranquility … promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.” The Framers brilliantly recognized the interconnectedness of these federal guarantees. It’s within the commonwealth of “the general welfare” that “domestic tranquility” reigns and the “blessings of liberty” are secured for every individual, not just for those wealthy enough to buy it.
A democracy should debate the substance and implementation of “the general welfare.” We don’t all need to agree, but we need to rescue the notion of “welfare” from its debased and degraded state, a state that would fall away if we did indeed “promote the general welfare” of the nation.
If that one profound sentence, the preamble, were (voluntarily) recited daily in our schools, imagine the national conversation across generations for “ourselves and our posterity.”
Anna Wrobel
Westbrook
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