There is so much at stake this weekend and, surely, this will go into next week with Passover looming at the end as, perhaps, a real deadline. Be prepared, my friends: We will see the worst of our politics in the next few days but what is at stake is far more important even who gets elected president, something so many put so much energy into just a year and some months ago. It is even more important than health care itself, as vital as that issue remains, more than sixty years after it was identified as a national exigency.

In the meantime, the mantra against taxes and government itself has settled over the country even while everyone---including the greedy proponents of the end government movement---enjoys the benefits of the more progressive thoughts and achievements of our forebears: particularly those named Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Since then we have been told that all that matters is that there be "no new taxes," which is nothing more than another way of saying "I got mine. You go take care of yourself."

This is now people operated before it was understood that government was necessary; that there was a value to coming together, pooling one's resources. It is how our roads were built, we defend ourselves, we explore new horizons and, of course, how we educate our children.

Some horrible person was elected president and told everyone that

government is not the solution to our problem; it is the problem

which translates to "you are on your own. Best of luck."

And the stupid, poorly educated sheep we are bought it. We complained about how long it took us to renew our car registration given all those long lines, how badly our roads had fallen into disrepair, how incapable our government was in responding to natural disasters, or protecting us from terrorists who flew airplanes into our buildings and why every other country seems more prepared to meet the future than we are.

And we wondered how that happened.

We have made a mess of things since then and have put this country on a clear path as a society in decline. Until recently, every president since the "government is the problem" speech has bought into it, including the one nominated by the Democratic Party, who told us the answer had to be found in voluntary associations:

The era of big government is over, but we can't go back to a time when our citizens were just left to fend for themselves.

We will meet them by going forward as one America, by working together in our communities, our schools, our churches and synagogues, our workplaces across the entire spectrum of our civic life

nothing more than a restatement of the first President Bush's "thousand points of light" :

we're a nation of community; of thousands and tens of thousands of ethnic, religious, social, business, labor union, neighborhood, regional and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary and unique.

This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Women of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, "Holy Name" -- a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky

The truth is that all those associations are great, and they represent many communities, but the one that looks out for all of our people, regardless of religion, race or any other irrelevant thing, that educates our children, that protects us from harm, that build and maintains the roads, takes away the garbage, explores what science and medicine offers, and does the many things that we cannot do ourselves or even as voluntary groupings, is government. If it has to be on television to be true, here's  a little West Wing for you to explain the point further.

The damage done to our country during this period of greed and selfishness is almost incalculable. We will not make it back to the country we were before Vietnam divided us into irreconcilable camps for a long time, but as President Kennedy told us in only a slightly different context, "let us begin."

We need a government which will step up to this long neglected challenge: to make sure that nobody suffers needlessly because they cannot afford the medical care that would otherwise be available but is not because of a lack of financial resource. As President Kennedy said while medicare was pending, it's not that much to ask of our government.

As so often it does, the inaugural address of the president whose words meant something even to this eight year old boy when they were said on a snowy day in January and remain resonant in the mind of almost everyone who has heard them, either then or since, contain the antidote to the mean spirited, selfish attempt to destroy government and its role in our scoiety.

Every day of these endless debates about this bill, whether "deem and pass" or "the reconciliation process" is a good idea, whether we could have done better, whether perfect should be the enemy of the good, whether Speaker Pelosi can pull it out, whether the President should go abroad during this time, whether the Senate can do anything at all, these words from that most famous speech, are the ones that resonate every single day:

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Amen.