to know how gross the recent statement by Rand Paul about extended unemployment insurance really was.
I cannot claim to be that person, although there were brief times where I did not know how I would pay for my next meal. But my rent was paid, I had a job, and I knew I would get through.
Charles M. Blow has experienced poverty, and that is part of the context in which his writes for tomorrow's New York Times in piece titled The Appalling Stance of Rand Paul, which I highly recommend.
Let's be clear that Paul is not alone in his attitude towards aspects of the social safety net. Of greater importance, Blow fully recognizes that the idea of some being "takers" and abusing the system is not limited to the ppor:
Whereas I am sure that some people will abuse any form of help, I’m by no means convinced that this is the exclusive domain of the poor and put-upon. Businesses and the wealthy regularly take advantage of subsidies and tax loopholes without blinking an eye. But somehow, when some poor people, or those who unexpectedly fall on hard times, take advantage of benefits for which they are eligible it’s an indictment of the morality and character of the poor as a whole.
What that means is that we have left our understanding of the Great Society in the period in which we now find ourselves, or as Blow writes
We have gone from a war on poverty in this country to a war on the poor, in which poor people are routinely demonized and scapegoated and attacked, and conservatives have led the charge.
Please keep reading.
Immediately after what I quoted above the squiggle, Blow lays down the marker upon which he stands, noting his own personal experience of poverty, and what he has observed of people who are in poverty, often working very hard with no opportunity to escape.
He explains that it his experience and observation which lead him to reject arguments like that of Paul, that things like extended unemployment insurance somehow tie people to poverty and dependency, and that it is about their character, arguing in what is the heart of this powerful column
To buy into this destructive lie about the character of the poor means you’ve either had no experience being poor, or have no capacity to empathize with their plight.
Being poor is a job unto itself. The daily juggle of supplying the most basic needs — food, shelter, medicine — and the stress of knowing that you are always just one twist of fate away from calamity.
James Baldwin put it best: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
Here I note that you should not have to be poor to understand one part of what I have just quoted:
the stress of knowing that you are always just one twist of fate away from calamity.
Lose your supposedly middle class job and until the affordable care act you might suddenly have no health insurance, or be able to pay your kid's college tuition, or make a car payment or meet the rent.
Too many have no savings, no margin of error.
My wife's illness has hammered this home to me.
Were we poor, if she had not had federal employee's insurance, if we did not have retirement savings into which we could dip, we would not have been able to fight her cancer - we could not have afforded the original treatment, much less the stem cell transplant that is extending her remission.
I have a dear friend who has a medical condition, no medical insurance because she is divorced, her medical condition limits the kinds of work she can do, and thus she is having trouble finding employment. in her 40s she has had to move in with her parents in order to keep a roof over her head. She is willing to work, but because she is long-term unemployed, and was not eligible for compensation because to have a roof over her head she moved from another state. She is poor with no apparent way out, even though she is willing to work. Because she is unemployed it is harder for her to get hired.
I have students where one or both parents have lost their jobs in the past few years. If they are seniors, the only way they can attend college is through the local community college and then hope to get some assistance to attend a state college or university, perhaps by signing up for the military - these were conversations I was having today.
We have members of the Daily Kos community who struggle - to pay medical bills, to keep a roof over the heads. The likes of Rand Paul and some conservative groups would criticize them because they have computers or tablets and can post online. Or perhaps they do it through smart phones. Somehow possession of such devices is supposed to indicate that they are unworthy poor.
Let's take the cell phone. IF you do not have one, and have no fixed address because you are homeless, how does a potential employer contact you?
Companies are still not hiring, often sitting on massive amounts of cash.
Any unemployment compensation received is immediately injected back into the economy because it is quickly spent. Bonuses and extreme salaries for executives often like corporate cash is not spent in a way that grows the economy. We would be better off economically as a nation taxing those excess riches to provide for the basics for those who often have lost jobs through no fault of their own, and what employment is now available for them is at much lower levels of compensation and often without benefits - have you taken a good look at the people working in fast food restaurants and convenience stores around you?
We can examine the reasons why we have the situation we do. Charles Blow, having been poor is unwilling to accept the rhetorical blows and lack of empathy and support from conservatives, because regardless of how it happened
what we shouldn’t do is to tell people who had jobs and lost them, people who want work and can’t find it, that to help them does them a “disservice.”
That is the height of arrogance and callousness. And it’s disrespectful.
To which, besides the obligatory "Amen" I would also add that it neither helps the economy nor promotes democracy, two issues that should be important to all of us, that is, if we really believe in the ideas contained the the Preamble to our founding document.