The Poor as Politically Expendable

by A. BRUCE CRAWLEY, The Philadelphia Tribune

Even if he did so inadvertently, Brother Romney did manage — in a way that no other presidential candidate, or incumbent, had done so far — to get the word “poor” injected into the national political dialogue.

The man who took home a reported $20.9 million in investment income, last year, while holding no actual job, himself, was simply reaching out to the middle class, the people in this country who he believes represent the clear majority of the population, the people who are most highly educated, the people who look most like him, the people, his handlers remind him, that have the greatest propensity to vote.

Perhaps, he and his advisers haven’t been watching or reading that part of the news that doesn’t relate to the Republican primary debates, or the shifting fortunes of the candidates, and the most recent polling results. If they had, maybe they’d know that many of the formerly middle-class people they’re hoping to attract are, now, themselves, officially “poor.”

Running for president is all about the debate, all about shuttling back and forth across the country on private jets to meet with highly partisan supporters, deep-pocketed donors, and with media pundits. Meetings with actual voters? Not anymore. These days, “voter contact” is mostly a highly staged affair, with pre-screened partisans recruited to fill auditoriums or to stand behind the candidate during televised speeches. Meetings with actual, unscreened American people, who might not follow a script? Well, that’s out. Doesn’t make for “good TV.” How would it look on YouTube? Why take the risk?

That’s how one runs for the highest office in the land in 2012. That’s also how it was done in 2008, in 2004, and in the year 2000.

Hence, the longer these campaigns go — for both Republican and Democratic candidates — the more deeply these potential leaders of “the Free World” get wrapped up in their own “bubbles.” The fact is, they all need to “get out more.”

How else do you explain Mitt Romney saying that he doesn’t have to be concerned about the “very poor” because “We have a safety net there?”

On the jet, from Iowa to New Hampshire, or from South Carolina to Florida, didn’t Mitt’s people ever sit down with him and show him the late November Census figures that indicated that one in four American children are now living in poverty, and that the poverty rate, in this country, has reached an all-time high?

Would it have changed Mitt’s “throw away line” about “90 to 95 percent” of Americans being included in the middle class if he knew that the poverty rate for Black children stands at an alarming 38.2 percent? Do his handlers ever let Mitt, a branded “Conservative Republican,” think, or speak out loud, about what is happening to Black children? Does he care, or are they just one more, expendable, non-voting segment of his strategic, political calculations?

Here’s something else: Every day, thousands of U.S. workers – highly trained, well educated, widely experienced and formerly “middle class,” themselves– continue to suffer the effects of mass corporate layoffs. Recently, for example, there were announcements of 7300 layoffs at Astra Zeneca and 13,000 layoffs at American Airlines.

In that regard, the Roosevelt Institute has disclosed that, since 2009, layoff victims have been more likely to give up looking for work and to drop out of the labor force, than to find a job, given the lack of re-employment opportunities in this country. According to Roosevelt, since the Recession began, in December, 2007, 4.7 million people have dropped out of the labor force. Having lost all hope of ever finding work, they have simply stopped looking, anymore, for jobs. Therefore, they don’t even get included in the official government unemployment reports we see each month.

Returning military veterans, from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, are substantially more likely to be unemployed and homeless than other Americans. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that young male veterans, between the ages of 18 and 24 had an unemployment rate of 21.9 percent in 2010.

I guess, prior to him making his statement, Mr. Romney’s people also failed to mention to him that the massive cuts in government spending, espoused by every red-blooded political conservative, is leading, every day, to the destruction of the so-called “safety net” the candidate described.

With 46.2 million Americans identified as impoverished by the Census Bureau, the U.S. poverty rate now ranks among the highest in the developed world, behind only Chile, Israel and Mexico.

While he blindly pursues the elusive “middle class” voter, Mitt Romney needs to recognize that, unless Congress acts, soon, federal unemployment benefit programs will expire next month. He needs to appreciate that the number of Americans without health insurance has actually increased to just under 50 million people, over the past year, and that, in distressed cities around the country, even the agencies that have been responsible for providing support for the impoverished and homeless, are having their own budgets slashed.

In New York City, for example where overall city, state and federal spending on social services has remained essentially flat for the past three years, the number of city residents receiving federally funded food stamps has grown by 67 percent, from 2007 through 2011. In addition, the number of people enrolled in public health insurance programs has grown by 14 percent, to 2.9 million people.

Safety net? What safety net, Mitt?

And, why hasn’t this critical issue of sweeping, Third World-level poverty in the U.S. received more attention in mainstream media, prior to Mitt Romney’s gaffe?

Maybe it’s because the people who report the news to us each day on network-affiliated national broadcast and cable outlets are deeply conflicted about how much they should make “the poor” a high- profile part of the national political agenda.

After all, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer and Piers Morgan are earning $11 million, $2 million and $4 million, respectively, for reading the news to us, and old Wolf has a net worth estimated at about $16 million.

It ain’t just CNN. Bill O’Reilly, at FOX, pulls down $11 million, NBC’s Brian Williams takes home $13 million a year, ABC’s Diane Sawyer, $12 million, and the Today’s Show’s Matt Lauer, a whopping $17 million, annually.

Looks as though we’re getting both our news and our politics from people living in the same “very rich bubbles.” If you’ll notice, there’s been a great deal of media pundit discussion about how politically incorrect Mitt’s statement was, but not so much discussion, at all, about how to really correct the problem of poverty.

Despite the relative silence of the “bubble dwellers.” If this country’s national sovereignty is to be preserved, it’s obvious that these trends can’t be allowed to continue.

Perversely, a good first step toward placing these issues on the national agenda, was Mitt Romney placing his foot in his mouth.

A. BRUCE CRAWLEY is President and Principal Owner of Millenium 3 Management, Inc.

– as part of a Special Partnership with The Philadelphia Tribune

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