WORKING FAMILIES IN CRISIS WHILE CONGRESS PROTECTS THE WEALTHY

Commentary by Ove Overmyer

Rochester, N.Y.-- In our nation’s capital, the agenda has long since moved on from bailing out megabanks and letting the rich skip out on any responsibility to figuring out how to stop paying for everyday things that regular folks require -- luxuries like food, toilet paper, heat for the home and yes, health care.

Today the GOP Senate refused to give the poor and middle class the tax break they need during one of the worst recessions in America's history, while at the same time trying to convince the public that it's a good idea to give a "tax bonus" to the richest people who don't need it.

On top of this news, the latest extension of emergency unemployment benefits expired last Tuesday, as our dysfunctional Congress let the deadline go without striking a deal to keep the money and our fragile economy flowing.

Consequently, this development has virtually touched someone we all know and care about-- perhaps your next door neighbor, the family who always sits in the front row at church or even your brother in-law's family from Toledo.

Don't think it can't happen to you

One family in particular contacted me a few days ago nervous as hell, confused and uncertain about what the future may hold for them. The spouse of a CSEA member drew his last unemployment check on November 29 -- one worker among the two million or so unemployed causalities facing the imminent loss of their benefit lifeline between now and the end of the year.

In the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., we find this CSEA family confronting an action list that seems cruelly divorced from the proceedings in the nation's capital: they have to figure out how to keep it all together through the rough Rochester winter now that her husband's unemployment check has run out.

Every day I go to work and find out that a member or a member family is in crisis. In this particular case, I will not divulge their identity at their request. They are having a hard time coming to terms that this is really happening to them and not someone else-- they did say however, I could tell their story if I kept their names secret from our co-workers, employer and the media.

A carpenter by trade, the spouse is accustomed to earning his own way through the world by using his professional skills and the experience he has mastered for nearly thirty years. He is a very proud man as he should be. Since early summer, they have been providing for their family subsisting on his wife's involuntary part-time paycheck from her job as a library worker, plus a nearly $490 weekly unemployment check from his previous employment.

The family has cut spending in their grocery bill, cut out non-essentials such as going to the movies or bowling once a month with their two kids. They traded in their late-model SUV for an elderly sedan. She rides the bus to work now. They even quit volunteering evenings at their church events to save the gas money required to get there.

Now, the math is set to get uglier even still, as they contemplate how to run the household minus his unemployment check -- a situation that seems not only impossible but also completely unfair. Multiply this story by two million and you have quick snapshot of what life is like today for America's working families. How did we get here? Do you think the plutocratic GOP cares? Well, they don’t and their votes this past week prove it.

How could there have been so many billions of dollars available for Wall Street and the auto bailout, so much room to lower taxes for people with country club memberships and vacation homes, yet a $490-a-week check to help one family pay the mortgage while he looks for another job suddenly threatens to bankrupt our nation? Are we not the most resourceful and richest nation in the world?  I just don't get it.

What is the purpose of government?

It begs the fundamental question, what is the purpose of government?  According to supporters of government, it is the maintenance of basic security, public order and it should improve the lives of those citizens it represents.  Therefore, shouldn't we be helping people when they need it most, especially hard working citizens when losing a job is no fault of their own? Isn't that value part of America's DNA and what makes us a great society?

Today, American politics and the legislative branch are giving our system of government and democracy a very bad name. Have we lost all compassion for our fellow man? It is almost as sad as the NYT's "Death by budget cut" story from the wacky state of Arizona.  These recent developments are just plain unacceptable.  It hurts to see these things happen to our working families, it hurts really bad.