What is government for? Why even have something so expensive and constricting?

When our Founding Fathers wanted to define good government they lifted the Iroquois “Great Law of Peace.” We know of it as the preamble of our constitution.

“We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.”

The fact that two such different cultures, the Iroquois Confederacy and the European Colonizers, share the same ideal of good government shows it is a universal value.

“We the people” Authority rests with us, the commoner as well as the landlord.

“To form a more perfect Union” and work together more effectively.

“Establish Justice” Make things fair. To have an orderly way to settle disputes, make contracts and face social consequences.

“Insure domestic Tranquility” quiet, steady stable and serine. People can go about their business with confidence. They don’t have to be afraid.

“provide for the common defense” We have the biggest military in the world.

“promote the general welfare” a complicated duty. Roads, bridges Medicare and assistance to women, infants and children are all investments in public wellbeing. Schools, fire departments and police are all civil servants. Our water supply is run by municipalities. We need the federal government to take care of bigger problems, like the Space program, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the national Center for Disease Control.

“And Secure the Blessings of Liberty.” We can stand on the street corner or write a letter to the editor and express our opinion without fear. If a voter has a concern they can go the Town Board or the City Council and ask them to remedy the situation. If you want your representative to vote in a certain way you can call their office and tell them. If they don’t listen you can stand on the street with a sign, start a petition or even run for office yourself. No one tells us what music we can listen to or how to live.

“For ourselves and our posterity” For now and for the future. We are very fortunate our forefathers thought about us. We need to do some thinking right now about our children and grandchildren.

“Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Constitution is our blueprint, it expresses our core values and what should be our actions.

Right now we are in the midst of an emergency. No state or county can manage on it’s own. We need the federal government to be competent and act in the best interest of the average citizen, us.

How could we have prepared for this? How did the CDC prepare for the MERS virus to reach the United States in 2014? On May 2, 2014 Anne Schuchat said in a press conference, “In this interconnected world we live in, we expected MERS-CoV to make it to the United States. We enhanced surveillance and laboratory testing capacity in states to detect cases, we developed guidance and tools for health departments, we provided recommendations for health care inspection control and other measures to prevent disease spread.”

Without that kind of planning and coordination we are living in a state of chaos. States are bidding against each other for masks and equipment. The supply lines are tangled. Milk is being dumped and people are going hungry. Millions of dollars in stimulus money has gone to private jet companies and almost nothing is reaching the bottom.

There is disagreement about the way President Trump has handled this crisis. Some people say he’s doing great, other people not so much. We can be prove by looking at the payroll that key people in the Pandemic Response Team were let go or reassigned in May of 2018.

We have to work together now and take control ourselves.

First, we need the next stimulus check to help us on the bottom. We need money to reopen the hospitals and money to keep people from going hungry and homeless. Call U.S. Rep. Tom Reed. His Jamestown office is (716)708-6369. Tell him to put pressure on his party. We need billions for the hospitals and $2,000 dollars a person a month until this is over.

Some people will say we cannot afford that. At the same time the airline industry has received billions of dollars. They do not need it in the same way a family who is hungry does. They have assets they can use. Many families are looking at missing a mortgage payment or their rent. How many people are one paycheck away from homelessness?

Every month there is a new stimulus bill. The one the house passed last week was for $3,000,000,000,000. That’s three trillion dollars. The population of the United States is 328,200,000 people. If every person got $2,000 that comes to $656,400,000,000 That’s six hundred fifty-six billion dollars. That’s not even one trillion. Hospitals need a trillion. We need to more than triple the number of ICU beds. Hospitals are great employers we will get a lot of jobs out of this.

Even after supporting us on the bottom that still leaves the biggest share of the stimulus bill $1,343,600,000,000 for the government to hand out to major industries.

Call the White House (202) 456-1111. Explain that we need this $2,000 a person a month. It will help people pay rent and buy food. It will also allow people the financial comfort to support charities. There will be no church rummage sales or chicken dinners for a while. That money has to come from somewhere and if people are loosing their homes they can’t support the Humane Society or the Library.

Without those fundraisers some charities will go under. We will be a poorer place without our Animal Shelter or Literacy Volunteers.

We need money at the bottom. Keep in mind that Congress just gave $500,000,000,000 (five hundred billion dollars) in small businesss loans. We let the banks pick the businesses that money would go to. Not much of it went to Mom’s Diner or Dad’s Barbershop. If we can afford to support the airline industry we can support the average person.

If we are going to get through this we must make our government work for us. Call Reed (716)708-6369, Trump (202) 456-1111, U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (716) 846-4111 and Kirsten Gillibrand (716) 854-9725.

Marie Tomlinson is a Fredonia resident.