When Making Deals In D.C. Hurts Children
Everyone at all familiar with the Judgment of Solomon has to be aghast as political leaders reverse that Biblical wisdom and proceed to “split the difference” over who gets whose way on matters affecting children.
Instead of putting the interests of children first, there’s a prevailing wisdom among political centrists inside the Beltway that “compromising” with radical conservatives is the only serious approach to governance and policy-making. So when “hard fought” compromises are reached in the back corridors of the nation’s capital, centrists hold self-congratulatory press conferences, but the lives of children are cleaved in two. We see this in deals made over sequestration, in the new budget being proposed by the Obama administration, and regarding school security measures.
The Centrist Rejection Of Solomon’s Wisdom
Recall that when King Solomon was confronted by two interested parties vying over the well-being of a child, he threatened to serve both parties involved by hacking the kid in two.
This caused one party to stubbornly press its case and say, “Go ahead,” while the other party abandoned its own personal interests for what was in the best interest of the child in the long term. Solomon – understanding the long-term best interests of the child, and not the needs of the vying parties, was central to the matter – was able to rule justly and