We face dif­fi­cult times as a nation. Our econ­omy is fail­ing, our pres­tige in the world is fad­ing, and our mil­i­tary is stretched almost to its break­ing point. So it might seem nat­ural to take away fund­ing from that social­is­tic boon­dog­gle known as “pub­lic wel­fare” and use it to buy some shiny new jet instead. After all, your fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive might say, “it’s their own fault they got them­selves in that situation.”

But what I’ve had the priv­i­lege over the past two and a half years is to see this side of our nation. To see those less for­tu­nate, down on their luck, or just plain made a bad choice. And what I have to say is how dare you make those judg­ments. How dare you use phrases like “wel­fare moth­ers.” How dare you say it’s their own prob­lem. And how dare you say you’re out­raged when a mod­icum of taxes are spent on improv­ing someone’s life beside your own. You want out­rage? You’ve got it.

I chal­lenge you to tell the 98 year old widow-a woman who is able to keep her home tidy and take care of herself-that she doesn’t deserve a zero-interest loan to help fix up her house. A loan that will let her stay in her beloved house with­out hav­ing to worry about her fail­ing sep­tic sys­tem and that forced her to use a port-o-potty in the lawn.

I chal­lenge you to oppose pro­grams which allow sin­gle moth­ers, hard­work­ing fam­i­lies, and retirees an oppor­tu­nity to build their own homes, and become first time home­own­ers. They are not ask­ing for, or receiv­ing a hand­out, but an oppor­tu­nity. 12 months later, they will have com­pleted all of their homes, and move into the Amer­i­can dream.

Look into the eyes of that grand­mother who is liv­ing in a sub­stan­dard apartment-surrounded by drug dealers-and tell her despite her late husband’s years of ser­vice as a fire­fighter, and her own decades of ser­vice to the coun­try, she doesn’t deserve a decent and safe place to live.

Tell the hard­work­ing vet­eran who has a son with a birth defect that they don’t deserve a place to live. Even with his health insur­ance, costs are rock­et­ing, and he strug­gles to keep his fam­ily clothed and fed. Tell him that even though he is unem­ployed and dri­ves for hours every day look­ing for a job, he doesn’t deserve a place to stay.

Break the news to that retired wood­worker who ded­i­cated his life to his chil­dren that the home and beloved shop he worked so hard could have been pre­vented from foreclosure-but that you didn’t want to spend a few pen­nies on a hous­ing coun­selor to help save his home.

Let the grand­mother know that there isn’t any money for a zero-interest loan that will finance the home rehab she needs to keep her grand­chil­dren safe. Tell the kids who have a mother in drug rehab that if they don’t have win­dows in their room, it’s their own prob­lem. Tell their dis­abled grandmother-who tries as hard as she can every day to give them a good life-that she will need to find the money her­self to replace the stove that threat­ens to burn down their home every win­ter day.

Inform the cit­i­zens who have ded­i­cated their lives to pub­lic ser­vice, and tell the small busi­ness own­ers who believe so pas­sion­ately about their town-that there’s no money for them to bor­row to build a park, or to fix their com­mu­nity school.

Take away the shel­ter for bat­tered women. It’s their own fault for being in that rela­tion­ship, right? Take away their chance at flee­ing that life and start­ing over again. To regain the pride and respect they lost at the hands of an abu­sive hus­band. Say to their face that you don’t want to help pay for their small and mod­est apart­ments while they go to school.

Will you be the one to tell the sin­gle dis­abled mother that she and her son don’t deserve to live at a place they can afford, and that they need to choose between heat in the win­ter and food? Can you look straight into their eyes and say that her and her 6-year old child need to fend for them­selves? Why not use the “wel­fare mother” line, or the “lazy wel­fare fam­ily” phrase while you’re at it. Tell the son he doesn’t deserve a chance to make some­thing of him­self in life, because you don’t care. I’ll tell you some­thing, that 6-year old boy is my father. A man who used his sta­ble hous­ing and school­ing sit­u­a­tion to go to col­lege, to get a degree, and to con­tribute to soci­ety. Tell him that it was a mis­take to have sup­ported pub­lic hous­ing, and that you would rather pocket the frac­tion of a penny you would save by cut­ting his hous­ing as a youth, and lose the thou­sands of dol­lars he paid in taxes to repay he debt to society.

You can be self­ish and care only about your­self. But how dare you attack those who we help. How dare you oppose fund­ing because of the rare exam­ples where peo­ple take advan­tage of gov­ern­men­tal help. How dare you.