| This morning, I had breakfast with some old friends. The entire conversation was dominated by talk of economics, real-world economics, not the simplified supply curves of 101, but the pinch being felt by young people -- people leaving school with tens of thousands in debt, poor job opportunities, skyrocketing housing payments, unreliable cars, and giant questions about how they'll ever be economically secure enough to start a family.
What do you do, for example, when you get sick? Do you take the day off work and go to the doctor, losing a day's pay and paying the doctor out of pocket since you can't afford the health insurance policy offered by your employer?
Or maybe you show up to your customer service job, infect 5 co-workers and 200 clients. That's a way better idea, isn't it?
And what do you do if you have kids?
I met a young woman a month ago -- working her way through school after her husband left her with her two kids. When one of her daughters got sick, she had to take a day off work. On top of the doctor bills and a day's pay, she found out she had to pay for childcare that day -- her state subsidy for care only applied if she was working. Can't have welfare queens taking their kids to the doctor, after all.
Every month, you think you're barely going to make it. Most months, you do. But savings rarely accumulate. And some months, something goes wrong. Reimbursements for work expenses come late. Energy prices spike. An unexpected bill shows up. A child gets sick.
And the big question is -- does it really have to be this way? Sure, life's hard. That was a refrain growing up. And there's nothing wrong with expectations of work and personal responsibility. But people working hard and being responsible shouldn't have to live in regular fear of getting sick or having a child get sick or having a car break down -- certainly not in the richest country on the planet.
That's why I like this diary over at YearlyKos so much. John Edwards and Barack Obama are calling out a system festering with representatives of the richest and most powerful people on the planet. Hillary Clinton is calling this the "Constitutional system" and encouraging us to "work within" it -- as though working within a sinking ship is really such a great idea.
Neither Edwards nor Obama is perfect. And Hillary isn't the devil. But there's a clear break between these candidates and how they see the world.
It's also worth nothing that no Presidential campaign is going to restore balance. In fact, a laundry list of policy proposals passed by Congress and signed by any of these possible Presidents wouldn't be enough. It's going to take more. It's going to take hard work by real people across Montana and the country. It's going to take responsibility. It's going to take new organizations -- union locals yet to be formed. It's going to take new strategies and models that we're not even thinking of. But it is possible. |
