ABOVE: From Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay (license)
A letter to the editor by Jean Czarkowski of Toms River, NJ
For all those people who support a shutdown for a border wall, you better understand why people like me will be perfectly okay with a long term shutdown. Will people suffer? Yes, but suffering is a relative term. I can guarantee you that there is unimaginable suffering going on that wall supporters, and the public at large fail to see. Allow me to help you understand.
There are 2 different types of people who support a wall and their are two different reasons. Eirher: 1. To drum up fear for political advantage or 2. because they bought into the fear that people coming accross the border will be violent, or mooch off tax dollars and destroy our economy.
Let me fill you in on a secret. The monster of violence and destruction you fear is already within our borders. The economic drain on our society is already here. The root causes are born here, not abroad.
Bullets within our borders are not only killing Americans at an alarming rate, but people who survive gunshot wounds are falling into our severely strained safety net and being labeled welfare queens. Let’s do the math shall we.
Each day 246 people are shot and survive. For every shooting when someone lives…
1. Individuals lose wages.
2. The state and federal government lose tax revenue from lost wages.
[Editor’s note: All federal spending is, and has always been funded by created currency. It is therefore not possible for the federal government to “lose revenue.” State governments, however, can indeed lose revenue because they are unable to create the currency. Therefore, Trump’s wall, along with all federal programs, would not (and cannot) be funded with any tax dollars.]
3. Life saving and sustaining medical treatment is utilized by a person who is now incapacitated. One incident can quickly consume millions of dollars of care in a very short amount of time.
4. Each victim will most likely qualify and receive Medicaid, Social Security Disability and perhaps other state services.
5. Family members will have lost wages to care for victims.
6. Family resources will be depleted, sending more families and children into poverty.
7. Long term complications and ongoing care will continue to deplete public resources. Lead poisoning complications/ treatment, personal care attendants, adaptive equipment, specialized transportation and long term nursing care to name a few financial burdens.
Immeasurable costs…
8. The cost of trauma on victims is immeasureable, especially when they are retraumatized after every news report of a shooting.
9. The cost of our soul as a nation when one’s man-made right to bear arms or campaign dollars from the NRA…weighs in as more important than the lives of dead victims or victims whose lives hang in the balance.
Economists have been unable to put a cost valuation on this issue, but they need to. Some estimates are up over $100 billion. For me personally, I see it as this…one bullet that cost a gun owner $0.32 …cost you, the taxpayer millions of dollars the very first year of the injury. Multiply that by 246 people and multiply it again by 365 days per year. Then figure out how many years you want to calculate for and multiply by that number too! Was it worth the sale of the 32 cent bullet? Whatever figure you end up with…I can guarantee you it costs victims and families much, much more.
America has an internal hemmorage that is silently killing us from within. Only recently has the internal damage begun to cause symptoms as we cough up the blood of dead children in schools. Wall proponents are all worried about the superficial flesh wound. Sorry, we need to triage this nation. Your concerns will have to wait in the waiting room. Hunker down, this might take a while.
So no… Not one dollar for your wall…Fix America first!
Editor’s note: The opinions in this letter are the author’s only.
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