An Open Letter to Congress
Dear Congress,
My name is Evelyn Ho and I am a student at Summit Shasta High School in Daly City, California. In my English class, we have been completing a project about war and its effect on our society. During this project, I discovered how much our country spends on national defense and also analyzed President Trump’s budget plan for 2018 that was released earlier this year. It was shocking to find how large a portion of the country's budget the government spends on ensuring the safety of its people. Though spending billions of dollars on national security can prove to be useful during war, it is currently unnecessary when there are bigger problems at hand. While we continue to use most of our budget preparing for international conflicts, the U.S.’s unemployment rate is about 4.1%, meaning 13 million Americans do not have a job. I address my concern to Congress today because I am convinced that you all have the power to solve this issue. Instead of spending so much on the country’s defense, I ask for more funding to be given to the United States Department of Labor, which helps citizens in their search for employment.
Whenever I walk the streets of San Francisco, I always see people on the sidewalks sleeping in cardboard boxes, struggling to get by each day. Because they do not have jobs, they cannot provide for themselves; however, this could be changed if the Department of Labor receives more funding. The unemployed would get the guidance they need in finding jobs suitable for them with sufficient pay. Now, some might say that it is one’s responsibility to take care of oneself, but isn’t it our duty as a nation to help out those in our community? If we know that people are starved and cold because they do not have the money to survive, shouldn’t we do something about it? If we leave everyone to themselves, we do not have the right to call ourselves the United States when we disregard those struggling.
Helping people find jobs will not only benefit job seekers, but also decrease the number of crimes in our country. An assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania found that New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program led to a 10% decrease in incarceration and an 18% decrease in deaths among those who participated. Therefore, giving more funding to the Department of Labor would lead to more people having jobs and less people committing crimes. Because citizens would have enough to live off of, there would be less thefts, which would benefit those who get robbed and prevent human casualties that oftentimes come with crimes. By simply giving more money to helping people find jobs, we would be saving lives.
For all these reasons, I would like to offer a solution: give more funding to the United States Department of Labor. Giving more money to this government agency will help the people like those I see in the city and also decrease the crime rate. At this moment, helping people find jobs is more important than preparing for future threats. Thank you all for your time, and I look forward to seeing the changes all of you will come up with to solve this problem.
Yours Respectfully,
Evelyn Ho
