This land of plenty

One of the biggest fallacies in American politics is that we don’t have enough money to build roads and schools, provide healthcare for all, solidify Social Security, service the national debt and pay for so many other challenges that face our nation.

We have enough to pay for all these functions and more.

America has so much money that Tesla can pay Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man, ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over the next decade. This pay package alone could rescue Social Security for all Americans.

We can pay professional basketball players $50 million per year for shooting three-pointers. Baseball players who can’t hit their weight become multimillionaires. Football coaches at state universities get fired for losing three games in a season and walk away with $54 million payouts.

And taxpayers who can’t afford tickets to attend these games, much less pay for health insurance for their families, are obligated to build multibillion dollar stadiums for the owners of these teams.

Business interests currying favor with President Donald Trump will shovel out more than $300 million to build a monstrosity of a White House ballroom that will be used just four or five times a year. That dough would be better spent wiping out homelessness in DC and New York.

And these titans of industry will take their donations as tax deductions so the taxpayers of America will end up paying for this presidential playpen anyway.

Fortunately there are many billionaires who do the right things with their wealth. Warren Buffet has pledged to give away his billions to charity. Likewise Bill Gates, who spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year promoting healthcare around the world.

It’s not that tough to have nice things if everyone does their fair share. Elon Musk’s 14 children probably won’t go hungry if he pays a little more in taxes and tries to get by on the $650 billion he’s already bankrolled without the trillion windfall.

The United States of America is the wealthiest country in history. Money is not the issue to a better life for all here. The will to do what’s right is what matters.

There’s nothing wrong with people generating wealth through hard work and innovation. These go-getters built a struggling frontier colony into the greatest nation on earth. The ones with good hearts have used their good fortune to create — right here in America — the world’s greatest universities, medical centers, cultural institutions, research centers and countless other innovations that have benefited mankind.

My only regret is that over the last couple decades the newspaper business has been a lousy way to become a billionaire.

Is the new generation of wealth less philanthropic than their predecessors? Andrew Carnegie of U.S. Steel was no saint, but he did build thousands of public libraries across the nation, including right here in Storm Lake.

This community has also benefited greatly from other benefactors, many of them local, some of them still in our midst. They range from the wealthy to everyday folks who contribute what they can to worthwhile causes that help our neighbors, like the Times Pilot’s annual Mr. Goodfellow fund for needy children.

Instead of draining Tesla’s resources, Musk could use that trillion dollars to pay his employees more, or make schools better so we can educate more engineers, or feed the world’s hungry.

The point is, we can do it. Money should be no object in this land of plenty.