We are often told that we don’t have the money in this country for what we need, whether for healthcare, education, housing or anything else. This is a lie! When the banks are in trouble, it’s called “a crisis” and they have no difficulty coming up with the money, but when our lives are in distress, it’s called “normal.”
While the government has only recently been talking about assisting American workers who have been hit financially, they had no trouble coming up with the money to bail out the various banks. On Thursday, March 12, the Federal Reserve Bank announced that it would give $1.5 trillion in loans to the financial sector.
So just how much is $1.5 trillion? According to the National Priorities Project, here are some things that we could do with $1.5 trillion:
- Cancel all student debt in the United States.
- Cover the cost difference between Medicare for All and our current privatized health insurance system.
- Build all the renewable wind and solar capacity we need to replace all fossil fuel energy generation in the country.
The people in charge have made it clear where their priorities lie, and it is not with us. It is not with our general wellbeing. It is time that we stop looking to them for solutions for the problems that we face and look to ourselves!
Featured image credit: Getty Images via Politico
