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Editor’s note: The holidays are a particularly lonely time of year for many people. Rep. Balint’s bill addresses a real problem and offers government-based solutions. What do you think about the problem, its causes, her proposed solutions, and (if any) better alternatives? Please respond via online comments below. Or, send a letter to the editor at news@vermontdailychronicle.com.
by Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vermont)
I’m proud to announce that this week I introduced a bill to combat loneliness in Vermont and across the country, the Combating Loneliness Act. Loneliness and social isolation are harmful, and not just socially. The loneliness epidemic affects many of us, but it is profoundly seen in rural areas, our senior communities, and among young people.
The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy cites that having poor or insufficient connection can result in a “29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.” In fact, long-term social isolation is more dangerous to one’s health than smoking.
The Combating Loneliness Act tackles the mental health crisis through community-focused approaches. To truly bring our communities together, I believe it’s essential the federal government fund the organizations that already provide low-barrier support to those struggling with their mental health.
This legislation will support the work being done at the community level to increase social connection and mental wellbeing for all Americans.
- Social infrastructure: This legislation invests in physical infrastructure that creates social connection such as playgrounds, community gardens, recreation areas, and bike lanes. This bill also bolsters our “third-spaces” such as libraries, recreation centers, veteran service organizations, and senior centers so that they can expand their services with a focus on social connection.
- Public health: Mental health care for communities and the health care workers that take care of us are both essential components of ending the loneliness crisis. The Combating Loneliness Act bolsters the community health workforce, reauthorizes the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, funds mental health support groups, and encourages peer support workers. Additionally, this legislation creates new grants for mental health providers and extends pandemic-era programs that work to prevent burnout of healthcare providers.
- Youth mental health: The Combating Loneliness Act prioritizes youth mental health and social connection through increasing funding to existing mental health programs in schools, access to school-based health services and after-school programs.
It is critical the Combating Loneliness Act be implemented alongside other initiatives that promote stronger, healthier communities including universal health care, paid family leave for all, affordable housing and childcare options, and more.
In the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, he writes “We are called to build a movement to mend the social fabric of our nation. It will take all of us—individuals and families, schools and workplaces, health care and public health systems, technology companies, governments, faith organizations, and communities—working together to destigmatize loneliness and change our cultural and policy response to it.”
I believe we need an all-hands-on deck approach to combating loneliness and ensuring we have healthier and happier communities.
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Categories: Commentary, Congress, Holiday, Mental Health
No one should be lonely, but where will we draw the line as far as where it is poper, or not proper for big broe to interfere ?
More granny state; spending and fostering dependence on government isn’t healthy or the answer.
There are many ways one can have community and not be lonely. Join a church for one. Stop being selfish and look outside yourself. Get involved as a volunteer somewhere, there are many opportunities. Determine how you can be a light in your community and see what you can actually physically do for someone else. This does not have to be elaborate. Maybe you can do the dishes for an elderly man or woman or couple.nmaybe you can just go visit someone and bring a cup of hot tea or something. We do not need government programs to accomplish any of this. We just need to return to the time tested principles of serving others and doing good. You will be greatly rewarded in this. No endeavor is too small. Merry Christmas to All.
Combating Loneliness Act. How did that work out with the COVID SCAM DEMIC LOCK DOWNS??????? Now did that make you feel more lonely?????? Where your family members in the nursing homes more lonely during the COVID KILL SHOT OPERATIONS????? These politicians are going to feel more lonely when the taxpayers throw their …. out of office. Remember your social connection was six feet apart.
Bingo.
Exactly. These politicians supported the COVID-19 protocols isolating children, closing schools, forcing people to stay home and encouraging children to report their parents for traveling over the holidays. Then you have the culture war which our politicians leverage to their advantage and cancel culture. From my perspective, they created this mess. Why should tax payers toot the bill for a problem government caused.
Come on Vermont. You can do better than this. Quit sending wing nuts to D.C.
Leave it to the government in general and a Democrat in particular to recommend a government program to fix something with the attendant increase in spending and government jobs. You can’t make people be community minded if they would rather stare at their phone day and night. That and the decades of government programs that largely structured the civilization that made all this rampant loneliness. Like Sukey says, it’s going to take individual initiative, and you can’t force that through government meddling.
Considering UVM is closing mental health facilities at the behest of government intervention a la Green Mountain Care Board, I would say the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing
Headline fixed:
Balint: Legislate away stupidity
by Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vermont)
I’m proud to announce that this week I introduced a bill to combat stupidity in Vermont and across the country, the Combating Stupidly Act. Stupidity and social ignorance are harmful, and not just socially. The stupidity epidemic affects many of us, but it is profoundly seen in Congress, our State Legislatures, and among young progressives.
😂
At least with your suggestion there is a sure fire way to measure success!
SOME people are lonely by choice. I have to ask Ms. Balint, has she seen how people act nowadays? They are all about themselves and don’t mind stepping on someone else to achieve their means and it seems the only time they want someone is when they need something. When I’m not at work, I pretty much keep to myself be it in my home on my hobby table or out on a hike somewhere.
As previously mentioned, people don’t HAVE to be lonely. Join a church group, get into theater or something. There are many avenues. We don’t need legislation to address this.
Same here. Becca Balint doesn’t care about social division she is a fully paid up member of the club that makes healthy social interaction almost impossible. Every interaction is now some moralistic test ( your church group demands adherence to every aspect of the LGBTQIABC agenda for instance) or a sales call – activity groups are run by a small group of individuals who are selling goods peripheral to the activity.
But she needs a “cause” to run cover for her money laundering scam. Combatting loneliness seems to be the latest fashionable one. Anyone who says this is just another waste of money can be labeled as cruel and be silenced.
So she lobbies to get big daddy government to fund some expensive but half hearted “initiatives” to “combat” loneliness. That will make her cronies even more money. And they don’t even have to ask if these initiatives work.
The fact is, progressive Dems need social division to operate. They need their whipping boys to keep their deluded world view credible. Their greatest fear is that we will start talking to each other and realize that we have been blaming the wrong people for what is wrong with the world.
Do something meaningful, fight to get our eyes and teeth included in medicare.
Most missed what Balaint said in her Combat Loneliness Act.
Invest in –
Increase funding –
It’s about MONEY folks. You pay more in taxes and our government will fix loneliness ❗
What a crock of _ hit.
As nice as that would be it will never happen.
As it stands Medicare is due to run out of money in about 10 years how will expanding the program help fix that?
Just another woke idea from Vermont’s DEI legislator, our nation and state is in turmoil and this is what she comes up with……………………………. your tax dollars are being spent on feel good pet projects, where do we find these people ??
How pathetic
I find this conversation quite fascinating because it illuminates the very reason I became a Republican and why (I believe) Congresswoman Balint became a Democrat. I’ll credit her for speaking about a legitimate problem and Guy Page for printing this with an invitation for comment. Excluding from the discussion severe mental illness, which certainly calls for government intervention, there are marked differences between political parties as to how society should approach this subject.
I believe it is fair to say that Democrats (as well as Progressives) see a problem and and seek to find a government solution to fix it. Republicans (including myself) know there are certain things where government has to be used to fix something, (like transportation infrastructure and criminal behavior and military defense for instance) but seek to keep government from running away with itself. I fully believe the Congresswoman’s heart is in the right place wanting to help those in true need, but thoroughly disagree with the idea of using government as the solution here. This was never intended by our founders.
Since Guy has called for alternative solutions (a fair request- disparaging insults don’t help the conversation), let me offer the example of my own upbringing.
At the fairly young age of 12 my mother convinced me to sign on as a volunteer at a day camp for what were then known as “mentally retarded” individuals. I know that phrase isn’t politically correct these days, but to a then 12 year old those words presented as a frightening prospect. I had no experience in the subject whatsoever. It was a crash course in overcoming one’s fears. The lessons that job taught me and the friends I made dispelled any chance I’d experience the lonely feelings described in this essay. It also set a precedent in community involvement for the remainder of my life.
In high school I helped organize a benefit “Walk for Mankind” to raise funds for the poor. I joined a church folk group where I learned to play guitar (a skill that brought me income through college and law school), which fostered countless relationships.
In college I learned to run a radio station as a disk jockey, participated in numerous intramural sports and involved myself in student government. This continued through law school. These activities greatly enhanced my personal connections and minimized any danger of being taken aback by loneliness. After graduation I continued community involvement with Rotary and several civic foundations.
Never would I have ever imagined turning to government to find a cure for something I never had time to experience. Are you experiencing loneliness? Then take the initiative to network and volunteer in your community. (One of my favorite current activities is a weekly coffee klatch of guys my age who meet to allegedly solve the word’s problems.) Even Vermont’s most rural communities have boards, clubs, organizations, churches and schools that are desperate for people to serve. No government intervention needed.
Re: ‘No government intervention needed.’
Bingo! A common refrain over the last 250 years or so that we seem to ignore… sometimes by choice, sometimes due to peer pressure.
To paraphrase Milton Friedman:
“When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom.”
To paraphrase T.S. Eliot:
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
To paraphrase Bob Dylan:
“When will we ever learn?”
Joe Benning 1977. Where were you during the COVID SCAM DEMIC LOCK DOWN and were you at that time in a public office?????
The Commiecrats are now trying to legislate away the problems they created.
Post election, Becca is running an advertisement, ad nauseum, on YouTube. Who is paying for that and what is the purpose of it? The ad starts out by her boasting that she is most proud of visiting all 14 counties in Vermont – twice – in her two years in office. Wow, that is an extraorindary accomplishment! How long did it take to do twice? Two years? I-91 is 177 miles from Brattleboro to Derby? How many counties does that pass through? Route 7 is 176 miles down the other side of the State. How many counties does that pass through? Route 100, 216 miles somewhat straight down the middle counties – a pleasant, scenic 6-7 hour jaunt?
Good thing she doesn’t represent Texas, she’d still be driving through one county two years later. What an embarrassment. Yet, Vermont is a shameless embarrassment and a laughing stock of the USA. We put out the biggest baffoons for all the world to mock and meme.
I think that there are indeed many avenues available to people of all ages to enable them to engage with others, contribute to the community and enjoy hobbies and activities with others. The one issue that I think needs some consideration is that of transportation. In VT, most people are dependent on cars. Some can’t afford them. Some are disabled or no longer able to drive, especially at night. I think this issue is one that needs addressing; solve this and many of the parts will fall into place.
Uber!
I love the Christian-like comments from the regular contributors to the Chronicle’s comment section.
Loneliness is a state of mind. How is Balint going to legislate that?
I WISH SHE WOULD LEAVE US ALONE
I did not realize that April 1st had arrived so early!!
Ms. Balint:
I don’t think I can say it much better than Joe Benning did. The majority of the people in the US have given you a clear message: stop spending our money on your pet projects. Our national debt now stands at $36.27 TRILLION dollars, projected to be over $40 TRILLION no matter what we do by the end of 2025. Every citizen should study https://usdebtclock.org
If you want to help solve depression, please consider helping us stay out of your mandated debt-slavery by reducing spending to only NESSISARY things. Given the opportunity, people can figure out how to solve their own personal issues. The plan you are proposing eliminates personal choice and mandates that instead of using our resources as we see fit, we must give them to you and allow you to decide for us.
I advise you of this with great urgency. Do this before it becomes a shooting war between free people defending their property and government bullies looking to steal that property.