The Coming Storm
Topic: Energy Costs
There is an ominous cloud hanging over low and middle class American as winter makes it steady march towards us. That cloud is the high heating costs for natural gas and heating oil, which is going to up to fifty percent higher than last year. It doesn’t help that gasoline prices are still painfully high, forcing many people, me included, to curtail much of our unnecessary driving. A lot of us are in denial about what lies in store for us this winter and are putting off thinking of the punch we’ll have to take just to keep warm. I am not in denial, but there isn’t a whole lot I can do other than stay up at night worrying.
And I do not just worry about my family. No, I also worry for the poor amongst us who will suffer greatly as the temperature drops. This Christmas may not be very extravagant, but we will not have to worry about putting food on the table. Many American will be visiting food banks and soup kitchens for the first time. Children will not be able to have a proper coat for the winter, or they may need to have other utility bills go unpaid. The late fees will add up and push them further down into depravity, which should shame us as Americans.
But the poor do not have guardians as do the rich in America. Our esteemed politicians are talking about more tax cuts for the wealthy, at the same time they are talking about cutting billions of dollars from vital programs that the poor need, such as Medicaid and food stamps. It is getting harder and harder to make it in America and the forces are arrayed to keep the poor at the bottom, stomping them ever further down, so that there can be more incentives to invest and fatten up an already bloated accounts of the wealthy. Greed is destroying us and the price to be paid will be high indeed. These callous and self centered politicians should spend time with their less fortunate constituents to see what happens when they diminish a single parent’s ability to feed her children. They should have to look into their eyes and tell them that they cut their food stamps so that more tax cuts can be granted to the guy across town driving his beemer into his McMansion.
Americans have become so self centered that we can not see the suffering surrounding us. We gripe about the high gas prices, but we fail to think how it affects the delivery man already barely able to support himself. At what point does our individualism become a sin?