Budget cuts hit home

A colleague is distraught because her spouse may be one of several hundred local employees expected to lose their jobs at the Federal Bureau of Fiscal Service, which manages our country's public debt. A college administrator is befuddled because we can't determine whether a grant we'd applied for still exists. And now a former colleague has lost her job with AmeriCorps--a job that empowered her to work hands-on with low-income students and families to help them manage diabetes.

You can read the whole story on Substack here, but the salient point is simple: "What the cuts to AmeriCorps communicate is this: people and communities are not worth investing in. They are 'waste.'"

I am allergic to writing about politics and I have no doubt that intelligent people can disagree about what kind of spending qualifies as "wasteful," but these cuts hit home in painful ways. Agencies that serve the neediest in our communities are being wiped out as people who do good and essential work get shoved out the door. You want to know what's a waste? Taking someone whose gifts, talents, and passions help low-income people live healthier lives and saying, "No thanks." 

My heart breaks for those who are suffering right now and even more for the many more who will suffer in the future, but mostly I'm embarrassed. If we can't provide essential care for the neediest among us, who have we become?