Amid recent reports that the middle class has registered miniscule augmentations to exceedingly modest incomes, though welcome news, these infinitesimal improvements do not impact in any salutary regard whatsoever upon those who remain imprisoned in the squalor of material deprivation.

Moreover, the numerous initiatives which emanate from this administration or any credible opposing source  whether they relate to health care, tax reform, infrastructure repairs, regulatory reform, or revisions in immigration statutes or policies, do not contain a single element within them that is beneficial or therapeutic in its consequences or ramifications for those among us who live in the cruel and dehumanizing  basements of impoverishment.

I am composing this memorandum about the tragic reality of America’s underclass as I prepare when dusk falls in Washington, D.C. to join with my Jewish brethren in the observance of the most sacred of all holidays in our calendar of holy events, Yom Kippur.

This holiday demands of all who share my theological principles that we admit and acknowledge the numerous sins we have committed in the behavior and actions which have been reflected in our daily schedules.

However, beyond the recognition of these slights and failings is there the most important requirement to humbly seek God’s forgiveness for these negative actions, and resolve to attempt in a sincere and continuous regard in the year which looms imminently to comport ourselves in a manner that embodies greater fidelity to the principles and obligations inherent in the practice of our faith.

Beyond the interpersonal realm of my interactions and the personal indignities I have inflicted on others, I am compelled in addition as an American citizen to admit  that I am also culpable as are we all in my view irrespective of the deity we worship, or for those among you who are agnostics or atheists or secular humanists, in the magnitude of those exertions and commitments we deployed to ameliorate the plight of our fellow citizens and noncitizens for whom life is an unending exercise in suffering and hopelessness.

During the holiday to which I alluded which extends from dusk on the 29th of September to its conclusion 24  hours later, we beseech our creator and ask that our humble amends and our fervent entreaties regarding the new year which has now begun, be favorably responded to and that as a result we will be inscribed in the book of life for the entirety of the ensuing 12 month period.

In addition to my prayers as a Jew I wish to add to these normative concerns my promise that I shall redouble my efforts in this new year to more ferociously seek the qualitative alleviation of misery and material deprivation in which more than 50 million of us are mired.

That I shall engage on the 3d annual American Assessment Anniversary which falls this year on Saturday, October 7, 2017 to join with many others in assessing the progress or lack thereof that has been accomplished during 2017, specifically as it relates to those indices which evaluates those policies and activities of major public and private companies within our economy.

Among the most significant  measurements are those that reflect  the magnitude of those in its employ who receive wages and salaries which enable a comfortable middle-class existence, their capabilities to obtain equity positions within these enterprises at minimal cost, and their access to retirement programs which enable the maintenance of this middle class status.

Further considerations relate to the participation of these employees as members of the Board of Directors, and other policy formulating mechanisms and committees within these corporations, that reflect both the character and content of the workplace environment, and the degree to which its operations embodies a robust democratization of this milieu.

External to these companies and their operations  are their behaviors which reflect environmental stewardship, the support of enlightened and democratizing legislation and public overtures and initiatives which in some innate regard reduce inequality and substantively mitigate poverty.

These tragic circumstances may be found throughout those urban areas and rural enclaves where so many currently languish in states of unemployment, opioid addiction, physical infirmities and psychological pathologies, as well as more diffuse and pervasive states of social dysfunction and the gnawing sensibility that theirs is  a life which our society adjudicates to be superfluous and  thus lacks  intrinsic value and the concomitant  necessity for its continuance.

We must in this new year redouble our exertions and formally declare as a transcendent national objective that we shall martial the totality of our societal resources, material, spiritual, and political to institute and remain fiercely and unrelentingly engaged in a multi-year campaign to eradicate poverty in the United States.

The strategic paradigm which we at the Fund For An Equitable America have formulated contains the capability to achieve this goal and it is our fervent hope that the conversations in which we are involved at this moment shall result in the award of those funds to operationalize this activity as a national demonstration initiative within three rural counties of the state of New York,

Beyond this specific proposal we applaud and vigorously support the efforts of so many enlightened individuals and inspired institutions who are devoting the totality of their resources to transform a culture that has so horribly foundered in its recent history and current trajectory and desperately requires the ministrations of all who are capable and so intensely desire to witness within their lifetimes a nation that with our continuing aid and our unrelenting energy shall ultimately realize the fullness of those promises that were articulated in the City of Philadelphia during a sweltering summer 241 years ago.

Regardless of where you presently stand on the continuum of a religious or secular embrace with timeless theological principles or a normative code which does not contain a deity within its construction, I invite you as my fellow Americans to join with me in this crucial undertaking to create a nation which in its daily existence shall be a testament to a vibrant  portrait of a society in which social justice is both ascendant and describes its fundamental character.