I’m writing this on September 11 when America is completely united, if only in remembering. The impact of this date hovers in the air like a thick fog. All but little kids have vivid memories from five years ago. I recall when the NPR announcer stammered, as if disbelieving, about a plane striking the World Trade Center. I imagined a small private plane, somehow in trouble — perhaps the pilot had a heart attack — veering off course, but right over Manhattan? No one could’ve imagined what really happened.
On that day, none of us could have foreseen the upcoming transformation of communities across America, including Fort Collins.
Under the headline, “Kids living in poverty doubles in our city”, a Coloradoan article from August 30 reveals an important aspect of this transformation. Comparing census data from 2000 to 2005, the number of children in poverty rose dramatically from 2,216 to 4,301, from 8.9% to 16.6% of kids; that’s one of every eight kids in Fort Collins. This is an extremely disturbing development, especially given the stunning rate of change.
Poverty doesn’t have the smack-you-across-the-face dramatic effect of a terrorist attack. Just like health-care costs and AIDS, poverty is more insidious, but it’s far more related to 9/11 than one might think.
The attacks of five years ago marked the beginning of our leadership’s singular focus on terrorism, at the expense of so much else. Adding insult to injury, when domestic decisions were made, the poor suffered. Increasing poverty in Fort Collins is a consequence of the intentional polarization of our society, wherein the socioeconomically disadvantaged suffer more, while the richest get richer.
Simple changes might have prevented this. The inaction over the minimum wage is ridiculous, and it directly impacts Colorado because we track with the federal minimum wage (some states saw the light). Adjusted for inflation, i.e. in terms of real buying power, the minimum wage, when compared against earnings needed to exceed the poverty line, only gets you 55% of the income needed. The last time the real minimum wage sank this low was 1949.
Spiraling health-care costs contribute to poverty in Fort Collins. Poudre Valley Hospital saw the number of patients unable to pay medical bills double from 2003 to 2005. But except for a largely vilified prescription drug discount plan, our leadership has ignored the health-care crisis.
America will remain divided on the rightness or wrongness of the Iraq war. I believe history will show it to be among the greatest blunders of all time. But the recent findings on child poverty are not debatable. They stand as testimony to failures of the past five years.
Imagine the outcome had we invested constructively the $300 billion (and growing) spent invading a country with zero relationship to Al Qaeda, as recent bipartisan Congressional reports have clarified. Imagine a Congress more interested in fighting poverty by raising the minimum wage than cutting the estate tax, a move that would benefit only the super rich and would cost the Treasury $750 billion dollars over the next decade.
Imagine how different the child poverty rate in Ft. Collins might be if we had leadership that refused to cut income taxes for the rich, refused to cut funding for child support and student lending, and refused to hand billions of dollars to oil and pharmaceutical companies.
Imagine our hope for the future if instead of battling terrorists created by our own presence in Iraq, we were battling real issues here at home. Perhaps while remembering one of our nation’s darkest days, we would also be reflecting on real progress.
