There’s a Problem with Supporting Federal Employees During the Government Shutdown
If the federal shutdown teaches us anything, it should be that folks that stand in line at the food bank aren’t there because they are lazy or stupid or immoral in some way. It’s because their bosses and the government can’t get their shit together.
There has been a national outpouring of love and support for the 800,000 workers affected by the shutdown. As stories and images of federal employees selling their belongings, taking second jobs, standing in food bank lines, and staging sit-ins surface, the nation has responded with an out-pouring of empathy and support.
Banks and phone companies are organizing to bring relief to many of these workers. GoFundMe itself has launched a fundraiser to lend them a hand. The United Way and Feeding America have both stepped in to help. Chef Jose Andres has launched a program to feed furloughed workers across the nation. And even Jon Bon Fucking Jovi got on his steel horse to ride in to the rescue.
And it’s total bullshit.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t think that folks that have lost their jobs don’t deserve support. It’s not that I don’t think that people without income should get free food, or help paying their bills, or waves of celebrity shout-outs and high-fives. It’s not that I don’t think that politicians on both sides of the aisle should be spending every gawddamn day standing at a podium regurgitating talking points about what a nightmare it is to be poor and have no job. And it isn’t that I don’t like Bon Jovi. Like many, I too am guilty of belting out a line or two from Living on a Prayer once or twice in my life.
The problem is, I don’t understand why EVERY person facing unemployment and underemployment doesn’t get the same treatment.
I don’t get why the nation is bringing out all of their tiny violins for federal workers standing in food lines while turning their eyes away for the over 50 million Americans that face food insecurity on a regular basis. It pisses me off that tens of millions of us can’t afford our rent and bills and have to sell our belongings and sometimes even our blood just to try to make ends meet and this nation hasn’t shown us a drop of empathy.
We aren’t eating free food from celebrity chefs. We aren’t being brought on Ellen and CNN to pump up our donations pages. We don’t have all of Congress begging the President to alleviate our suffering. That’s the fucking problem.
We can’t find work. We get cuts in services. We sell our things and stand in line after line after line and ee get told we are lazy and stupid and to just shut up and stop asking for hand-outs. We are shamed, criminalized, blamed, and traumatized not only by the conditions of poverty — but how the nation treats us because we are poor.
My problem with the out-pouring of support for federal workers is that they are any different from anyone else that doesn’t have enough money to make ends meet — but they are being treated like a special class of poor people that deserve support while the rest of us try to survive the winter with no heat. I can’t wrap my mind around how 800,000 federal employees are more deserving than the 80 million people living in economic security year-round.
Close to 48 million people in 23 million households receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). They receive an average of $133 per month to eat. Over 10 million receive Social Security disability benefits. They are somehow supposed to find a way to survive off of an average $556 per month. 5 million people are able to access some form of housing or housing assistance through programs such as Section 8, Section 2, and HOPE VI. If you include the 8 million people receiving assistance through WIC, that’s 71 million people accessing federal assistance to survive at the most basic and often insufficient levels.
And there are still millions more people struggling to survive that aren’t accessing federal assistance.
Why isn’t the nation declaring a federal emergency for us? Why aren’t banks and nonprofits scrambling to help us figure out how to keep the heat and electricity running? Why aren’t Gordon Ramsey, Rachael Rae, and the gawddamn Hamburglar on every corner handing out free lobster claws and crumpets or whatever it is fancy people and criminal masterminds eat? Why do people think that it’s only wrong if you work for the fucking government?
Or better question — why don’t we keep this empathy for the hungry and unemployed going and extend it to every single person that can’t afford to feed themselves or keep a roof over their heads?
Fuck the Wall. Put that $5 billion into SNAP. But that $5 billion into housing assistance. Put that $5 billion into income subsidies. Build a Wallet between people and poverty if you are so concerned about the security of Americans.
If you can understand that support for poor folks is necessary for federal workers, then there is no reason outside of bigoted misconceptions that should prevent you from understanding that ALL poor folks need help making ends meet. And it’s not their fault they are struggling.
The American people are hoarding $100 trillion in personal wealth. One. Hundred. Trillion.
1% of the population is hoarding 40% of the wealth. 20% of the US population is hoarding 90% it.
80% of the population is forced to split 10% of the nation’s wealth. And that actually goes to the middle 40% of the population. The 20% below them get nothing and the bottom 20% are in debt.
If we look at income — which is all the bottom 40% are living off of — over 80 million people living in 34 million households don’t earn enough to make ends meet. Around 49 million people in 19 million households have sunken below the federal poverty line. And our services and subsidies are the first in line to be compromised and cut when Democrats and Republicans alike step up to the bargaining table. How is our struggle any less meaningful than that of federal employees?
We have to stand in line at the food bank. We have to sell our belongings. We have to skip meals and burn candles when the light bill isn’t paid. And Bon Jovi is nowhere in sight.
Meanwhile, there are approximately 540 billionaires in the United States hoarding approximately $2.4 trillion. There are an additional 14.8 million millionaires, 7.6 million of whom are multimillionaires. These people have hoarded close to $80 trillion of the wealth in the United States. The top 1% hold onto $40 trillion of it themselves.
Those folks aren’t generating living wage jobs — they are operating a wealth vacuum.
If wealth — where the profits from generations of genocide, slavery, wage exploitation, and exclusion can be found (and usually attached to white bank accounts) — was distributed evenly to each person in the US, we all would boast a net worth of approximately $305,000. That’s more than enough to suffer through a government shutdown for a few weeks. Distributed by household, each individual or family would be cozily nestled with a nest egg of more than $805,000.
Not one family member of a furloughed employee would go hungry. Ever.
Instead, we have 20% of the population in debt, 20% with nothing to fall back on, and the top half of the economic food chain devouring the bottom. But at least they got their tax cuts, right?
We can get that money back, though. And then some. And we should. If we took just a small percentage of our money back, we could end food bank lines and poverty all in one fell swoop.
It would only cost the top 1% by net worth — those who hold personal assets of over $10.3 million or more after accounting for debt — a trivial 3.25% tax on their wealth to completely end poverty for over 50 million people in the US.
It would take approximately $1 trillion to subsidize the incomes of every American household making less than $50,000 per year. A 3.25% tax on the wealth of the top 1% would yield $1.3 trillion dollars. And 99% of the population wouldn’t have to pay a thing.
If we passed a Wealth Tax and directly subsidized the incomes of households that made less than $50,000 per year — no man, woman, or child would have to stand in line at a food bank ever again. (Read more about the #WealthTax HERE)
To accomplish this, though, it would take an act of Congress and the ability for Americans to extend the empathy it is showing to federal workers to all families and individuals struggling to make ends meet. No one can live on a prayer. With a Wealth Tax, no one would have to. If you have a problem with that — that’s the problem.
#WealthTax
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