Why Stating that the Constitution Does Not Expressly Provide for a Safety Net Does Not Mandate an Abandonment of Social Security and Medicare

When I posted my last set of comments on Facebook one person noted that the Constitution of the United States does not provide for a social safety net.  The implication was that all government intervention including social security and Medicare were somehow tainted by this. They aren’t. The writer was correct United States Constitution does not expressly provide for a “safety net” for the least among us. I also note that it does not prohibit it.

A government our government can and must accept responsibility for the poor, the disenfranchised, the sick and the outcast. We as a body politic must go beyond the express words of that hallowed document in seeking a just world. Our democracy is a living and adapting thing in a changing world. The Constitution is a framework for our communal life, not a straightjacket.

Our society has changed since the drafters penned the Constitution. Our society has changed dramatically even in the last century. 100 years ago our society was primarily agrarian, families lived in multi-generational units, existence was subsistence and the power and responsibility of other institutions beside the government were much greater. For example the church held much greater sway than it does today.

100 years ago the average American lived on a farm with children and grandparents in the family unit. The dictates of the church as to morality had something akin to the weight of law. In that world there were structures that minimized the need for government involvement in an individual’s life. When you got old your children took care of you and your grandchildren did too. Most likely you all lived under one roof. If times were tough the moral imperative was for other members of your church be it Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic to offer some aid albeit with a healthy dose of “Come to Jesus” intertwined. Societies like the Oddfellows, the Masons and various other groups provided communal structure. Your neighbors were part of your lifeline because chances were you all lived next to each other for decades and forged almost communal bonds.

We don’t live in that world anymore.

The majority of America’s population lives in urban/suburban communities. Less than 21 % of our people live in rural environments and of those less than 3 % farm. Thus the majority of our population does not grow its own food despite the locavore food movement. The majority of our population lives in very small (when compared to past history) family groups of 1 or 2 parents and 1 or 2 children. The majority of our population is what mainlined church leaders call the unchurched.

A 2006 online Harris Poll found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services "every week or more often", 9% went "once or twice a month". 2/3rds of the American population is not in any way a part of the weakened social structure provided by organized religion. The structure provided by the church is not as rigid as it was 100 years ago and to the majority of our people including the 35% that go at least once a month the 10 commandments do not have the moral weight they once did. Half of all marriages end in divorce and even bonding in marriage to have children and create a family unit is less common.

The crux of the issue is as follows. The America we live in is one of individuals living in isolation among a mass of people all acting as part of a mass of worker drones. We have few familial ties. We have weak community networks to offer any real support in times of medical crises and old age. Unless the government intercedes what stands between an individual and the corporate imperative to lower costs?

Corporations exist to make profit for a few. Isn’t the easier way to do that by forcing salaries down to the level of our third world free trade partners and by jettisoning health care and retirement programs? If people organize to obtain benefits from corporations that is called a union. But among the libertarian and Republican political philosophers union activity is anathema. Do you really believe that Wal-Mart who employs more than 1 in 100 Americans will actually put the health and living conditions of those people that work as clerk and stock room employees over those of it shareholders in the calculation of pay and medical benefits without the intercession of an external force, i.e. the government?

Who is left to stand for the isolated average individual at this time healthy or beset by infirmity but the government? Who is left to work with a citizen without moral judgment as to their race, creed or sexual orientation but the government? Does the Constitution require a safety net be provided by the government? No. Do the conditions of the America we live in today make it a moral imperative that the government actually create some form of a safety net? I believe the answer is yes.