Over one-half of U.S. House of Representatives members and two-thirds of Senate members are, at least, millionaires. Of the top forty-five wealthiest Congress folk, the highest net worth sits at about seven hundred million dollars; the remainder peter out in descending order of magnitude to net worths of “only” twenty-some million; these figures do not include their salaries. And of course, we all know the president is worth many billions, somewhere around $1.5 billion of which he has accumulated in one year from the office that’s not supposed to amass personal income at all. It’s not just federal legislators, the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility states that, “Out of more than 7,300 state legislators in the country, only 1.6 percent of the total currently work, or last worked, in manual labor, the service industry, or clerical or union jobs, according to a recent study conducted by Nicholas Carnes and Eric Hansen, political scientists at Duke University and Loyola University Chicago. By contrast, about 50 percent of U.S. workers hold jobs in one of those fields.”
I’ve been mulling this over as I fume about the irrational, untruthfully named Citizens United decision that gives corporations freedom of speech and allows unlimited amounts of money to be deployed to political parties and candidates during elections; and as I doomscroll the rotten news about people losing their SNAP benefits and medical care, not to mention the dropping of bombs in a brutal, unnecessary, unapproved, misguided, and insanely expensive don’t-call-it-a-war in Iran…all because people who have made it to top leadership and legislative positions in this country are there because we hired them (voted them in) on their promises—delivered in incessant, costly ad campaigns—to uphold the Constitution and work for the good of the People (us). But I wonder what “working for the People” can possibly mean to leaders who have never had to live in conditions under which most of their constituents live. “Jeeves! Bring me my Diet Coke!” “Can’t afford bread!? Why don’t they just eat cake?” Do you think the fundamental economic disparities among lifestyles of the silver-spoon legislators and the hardly-any-spoon voters could cause a disconnect in how the crazy-rich silver-spooners decide to legislate?
I would like to humbly propose a Constitutional Amendment here—a kind of immersive Outward Bound for People Who Pull the Strings. My dream amendment would make it mandatory that any person running for a federal government position of leadership—House, Senate, Presidency, and including appointed Cabinet members and Supreme Court judges—Oh heck, let’s make it state and local candidates too—must have lived and worked in the “real world,” right beside the people for whom they will be making decisions, issuing orders, and drafting laws: Dismantling agencies that help lower-income people live more comfortably and preserve the environment; approving tax cuts for the absurdly wealthy; deciding how our hard-earned tax dollars are to be spent; starting wars.
Lacking that sort of experience, I think a four-month period would give the Silver Spoon class a barely adequate taste of how their decisions will affect the world most of us inhabit. Perhaps these measures would stir a modicum of elevated consciousness (and conscience) in some of their never-had-to-worry-about-the-price-of-groceries cerebral cortices. Here’s a list of experiences each candidate would be required to explore in their four-month orientation to lifestyles of the hoi palloi:
Candidate would drive own car to a gas station and fill-er-up while squeegeeing the windshield, go inside for a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and, paying with cash, shoot the breeze with the salesclerk, about how the clerk wishes she had an electric car.
Candidate would pick up a bag of groceries, in person, from a local food bank and creatively prepare from the proceeds, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a family of five, for a week. Extra credit for working in a food bank and hobnobbing with the clients and volunteers. Extra, extra credit for delivering Meals on Wheels to disabled veterans and shut-ins.
Candidate would be required to live in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment, along with two large families, in order to understand the impact and trauma inflicted on hard-working people who are reluctant to go outside or send their kids to school for fear of being picked up by armed, coldblooded, masked immigration officials. Extra credit for sleeping on the floor in a donated sleeping bag for the week. Extra-extra credit for helping the neighbors who bring food to the families, so they don’t have to face the dangers lurking outside their apartment. Seriously.
Candidate would have to audit pre-school, as well as elementary, middle, high school, and college classes in English, math, science, history, and art to see what happens to kids’ minds in the presence of exciting learning, and what happens to teachers who have to buy supplies out of their own pockets because budget cuts to education don’t give them enough for anything “extra,” like art supplies. Extra credit for learning about poetry and performing their own sonnet at a public poetry slam. Extra, extra credit for getting it through their heads that our esteemed Founders called for separation of church and state for many good reasons and the Ten Commandments do not belong up on the bulletin boards of public schools.
Candidate must read the entire Constitution, Bill of Rights, all the Amendments, and pass a pop quiz with at least a B grade, or no dice running for office. Extra credit for understanding and standing up for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.
Candidate must attend a birth, preferably of their own child, but in a pinch, will put on a mask and stand in the presence of the miracle.
Candidate must wake up and get cracking on their own, make their own coffee, make their own bed, wash their own dishes, vacuum their own living room, mow their own lawn, and iron their own shirts for three months straight.
Candidate must fly economy on at least one long-haul flight. Economy, I said.
Candidate must work a union job in construction, a factory line, big box store, or ship onto a fishing vessel where the plight of fish and kelp would bring home the importance of protecting environmental regulation for the survival of mankind, or work at a factory farm to learn how cattle and pigs are treated. Also must spend a week on an organic farm, planting, learning about composting and bio-dynamic theory, animal husbandry, and then take the harvest to a farmers market where they would sing the praises of hard physical exertion for the growing of nutritious foods. Knowing where our food actually comes from might give legislators anunderstanding of the basics of actual life and what farmers are up against.
Candidate must live paycheck-to-paycheck for four months, to understand the stresses of being in the situation in which over 50 percent of Americans live—no financial cushion, no safety-net if an accident, flat tire, or serious illness occurs, no inheritance, no mercy given if late on the mortgage payment or rent.
Candidate must spend one night in a homeless shelter or women’s shelter interacting with people who took a wrong turn or got a bad break.
Candidate must spend a week in a corporate-owned gulag for captured, warehoused immigrants, eat the moldy food, drink the bad, inadequate water, sleep on the concrete floors, suffer at the hands of sadistic staff, and watch little children bear the unbearable trauma of being uprooted from their lives and their families.
Candidate must serve at a Caspar Community Breakfast, an Albion Fire Department BBQ (or equivalent in other states) to be informed and steeped in the joy of real community participation.
Candidate must get in a foxhole with a real soldier in a real war zone, dodging bullets and shrapnel, looking out for their mates, experiencing first-hand the sickening inevitability of death and bodily harm, for an entire month, to understand what they are voting for when they decide it’s a good idea to send human beings to battle. Extra credit for sending their own kids to war zones.
Well, that does it for now. Add your own requirements to this list—I’m sure you will think of other interesting experiences that would bring the people we vote for to run things into a more empathetic stance of kindness and humanity and practicality in their future endeavors. We want to pay taxes in a country that is run by actual experts, by scientists, by people who know and accept where the buck stops, by honest, empathetic Joes who want to do right by their fellow human beings. Who’s in? Really.
