Saying that you have no skin in the game suggests you can be impartial and disinterested in the decisions to be made.  Generally that is a good thing to say for a mediator in a mediation.  However, in governance, ‘no skin in the game’ can only mean you have separated yourself from all the responsibility for the actions your office. Your own person’s skin is safe from the consequences of your decisions.   The current administration currently has no skin in the game called ‘life-in-the-United States’.  Blanketed and insulated in billions, our newly declared rulers seem to have as private individuals the assets to float above it all  in a luxury cruising ballon.  They lounge, lofted above even the laws and the courts and never mind the hungry parents and children, elders across the bedeviled citizenry of this United States. What else could explain the inhumanity behind the intentional delays of food assistance this week. Lower courts offer a face saving off ramp to a disaster, Congress shrugs and the off ramp is dynamited by the President and Supreme Court.

All sides point to the other side and say they would feed the hungry if their opponents would simply relent.  That kind of pathetic stand off may be a first level challenge for parenting young children testing new powers, but is inexcusable and borderline criminal when it comes to adult public servants responsible for attending to hunger and malnutrition in a wealthy nation.

An Urgent Proposal for Good  

Congressional leadership holds the responsibility for this level of funding and administration and while it may be easier to point at the pouting, duplicitous, presidential response, it is also useless.  The Executive must administer what Congress disposes in a working democracy following the Constitution.  There are people out there with the expertise and skills in mediation or arbitration who could have found a resolution weeks ago or at least helped the stalemated Congress were this issue important to them.  If our Congressional leadership is unskilled in conflict resolution, good will be, in the future, electing candidates with the character and skill to overcome complex problems.  If a president wants to veto, that is legal but the finger of responsibility then would land on that office. But we haven’t even gotten that far.  Good in this matter is so simple it stands out like Times Square neon.  Congressional leaders need to feed the families now.  They must respect the conditions of economic support established in the treaties with the Indian Nations. Everyone’s skin is morally in the game.