Politically Pomp

We keep hearing the phrase: “We can’t afford universal health care. We can’t afford living wages. We can’t afford robust safety nets.”
But let’s flip that: What if the real issue isn’t affordability, but priorities?

Universal Health Care
Analyses show that a system like Medicare for All could save around $450 billion each year, not by draining resources, but by streamlining a fractured health-care system, cutting administrative waste, improving bargaining power, and expanding access. When health care becomes a privilege, we pay in hidden ways: emergency room visits, chronic preventable illnesses, and financial instability. When it becomes a right, our collective economy rises.

Safety Nets as Smart Economy
Consider the impact of putting money into the hands of people who spend it rather than hold it. Every $1 spent on food assistance, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), generates about $1.50 to $1.80 in broader economic activity. When low-wage workers earn and spend, each dollar adds roughly $1.20 to the economy overall. This isn’t just charity, it’s economic leverage. It’s safer, healthier communities; it’s stronger local businesses; it’s more resilient when storms hit.

The Context: A Safety Net Under Siege
Right now, because of the current federal shutdown, SNAP benefits for some 42 million Americans are at serious risk. Some states have warned that benefits may be delayed or reduced if federal funding isn’t restored. The question shouldn’t be “Can we afford to feed families?” but “Will we choose to?” When the federal government puts up barriers to these programs, it’s not just a policy choice; it’s a statement about whose lives we consider essential.

Reality Check: Where the Money Actually Goes
We have resources. We have wealth. We regularly make choices to allocate billions toward tax breaks for the wealthy, subsidies for industries, expanded defense budgets. But then we balk when it comes to ensuring everyone has a right to food, health care, and a dignified wage.

This is what I mean by “priority.”
When you make a conscious choice to protect and invest in people, you don’t spend money. You invest in society, in productivity, in human dignity.

So What Could This Look Like?

• A health-care system designed for everyone, not just those who can pay or those whose companies cover them.
• Safety-net programs structured not as handouts but as investments in human capital and community stability.
• A wage floor and employment policies that recognise the value of work and ensure spending power circulates.
• Fiscal policy and budgeting that treats programmes for children, seniors, families and low-income workers as core national infrastructure, not optional extras.

My Call to Action
We’re at a moment where the math works. The savings are there, the economic leverage is clear, the human case is undeniable.
What remains is the will.
What do we want our country to be? One built for profit and privilege? Or one built for people and purpose?
Let’s shift the conversation: from “Can we afford it?” to “What do we choose to afford?”

We’ve been told that this is just the way things are, that inequality, greed, and scarcity are unavoidable.
But that’s not truth; it’s conditioning.

Change doesn’t begin with policy; it begins with courage, the courage to imagine a country where priorities match our principles.

The budget is a moral document. It’s time we start writing it that way.