I watched the news on Friday. There was the typical end of week roundups on PBS and NBC. I saw David Brooks declare that "President Obama had a bad week," no less than three times. I am not surprised that Brooks and the rest of his beltway pundit friends were wrong, and that the American people believe the President did just fine last week.
Things are theoretical 70 miles to the east of me. There, wealthy journalists and politicians dine on fine food and make interesting conversation. There, the game which is played on capital hill--not football or baseball--is the topic of conversation. The word Nascar is never mentioned. And the winner is determined by who scored the "most points," roughly translated as who got the most pundits to say they won on television shows.
Here in Real America, things are different. I am having a really hard time finding a job. Particularly devastated are those of us with disabilities--our unemployment rate is 13.2%, nearly double the unemployment rate of the healthy population. This is largely due to the indisputable fact that modern American health insurance monetarily rewards employers who discriminate against the chronically ill.
Half of my friends are unemployed or underemployed. Those who are employed are being paid less and less as wage cuts strike government employees, benefits are cut in the private sector and stores close. I used to like to walk downtown and stop at the CVS pharmacy to buy a bag of chips. It closed at the beginning of the year.
Half of downtown Hagerstown is vacant buildings. Thousands of good union jobs have been lost this year, as Volvo takes its engine program back to Europe, largely due to health care costs. While Citigroup apparently had enough money to buy a luxury jet and name a baseball stadium, but there wasn't enough left over to pay its frontline workers here in Hagerstown.
We're spending less and less. Because the jobless still lose health insurance in America, we're cutting back on prescriptions, hoping that we don't get the flu, avoiding the doctor and the dentist, and eating cheaper food. The sales of pasta are through the roof; 24 packs of Top Ramen have returned to prominent shelf space in the grocery store. And more and more grocery carts are filled with store-brand products.
We're canceling our cable television and breaking out the bunny ears, just as the federal government is set to make our older television sets obsolete. We're using the library at record rates, just as cash-strapped state governments are being forced to cut library funding and hours. We're canceling vacations, and exploring local sights we never got around to seeing. We're skipping funerals of loved ones because the plane tickets are just too expensive.
President Barack Obama kind of gets it. A few short years ago, he was a politician on the verge of failure, deeply indebted to student loan companies, and on the verge of leaving public life. Had he listened to hife, and not run for US Senate, he would probably be struggling like the rest of us. In my judgment, he's been around Washington long enough to be mildly poisoned by it. But his conscience is still there, which is why he fought for increased health care funding, school construction which will create immediate jobs and improve our long-term competitiveness in the global market place, and road construction which saves lives--and struggling communities.
When the Republicans took action to cut aid to the states, the expansion of Medicaid, school construction, road construction, and repairs to our national parks from the stimulus bill, America groaned. Yet again, Republicans and their minions in the beltway media sided with the rich and the powerful over the hard-working and the destitute.
When we hear about these cuts, we think of our friends and family. We think about the person we know who is losing her house. We think about the diabetic who cannot fill his prescription. We think about our child's favorite teacher at school, who was just given a pink slip. We think about the construction worker who is now feeding her family at the food bank.
Real Americans are pissed. Hundreds of billions our money--money which could've been used to pay for our health insurance, our prescriptions, better public transportation, or to subsidize struggling state governments--went to greedy Wall Street fat-cats, who spent it on bonuses, vacations, and planes.
The bad economy may not have hit the Washington elite yet. They may still be eating filet mignon and fresh vegetables. But when millions of Americans line up at Denny's for some free pancakes, then there is a problem. Of course, we know that Brooks and his colleagues in the Washington gasbag chorus have never seen the inside of a Denny's, which is why they don't understand the real danger facing the President. President Obama hasn't gone far enough in reigning greed in the eyes of many Real Americans.