(This is a letter to the editor of the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead from March, 2010.)
To the Editor,
I want to thank the citizens of Minnesota for the help they have given me over the past two years as I have been in the application process for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Due to a serious, chronic illness I am unable to work full-time. In the past two years, I have relied on rent support, food stamps, and Minnesota’s generous healthcare program for the poor. I know that it is the tax dollars of my fellow hard-working citizens that have made an independent life possible for me (the alternative was my mother’s basement in north Fargo). I am grateful for your help, and I did not take it for granted.
I am a Republican who voted for John McCain. I may be the only Republican in the country on welfare. I was a teenager during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and his influence on me was formative. If I could sum up his belief about America in my own words, it might be, “America is a place where a man or woman is free to seek his destiny under God, with minimal interference from government.” There is constant conflict between my values and the things I believe I need to do to live independently. I take some comfort from the fact that SSDI is an insurance program, and I paid the premiums. But I don’t like it.
Issues like the health care overhaul (I supported Rep. Collin Peterson in his “no” vote, because of abortion and because I don’t think the country can afford it), taxes, Social Security and such are not black-and-white, even for the people benefiting from government programs. I suppose if I really stuck to my principles, I’d be living in my Mom’s basement. But I love being independent too much, and it’s good for my health. All I can do is be thankful for the system as it exists, and hope that we can find a way forward together, that gives each man and each woman our freedom under the Constitution while not forgetting those who need a helping hand.
Yours,
Anthony Schefter
Moorhead
