Mitt Romney’s statement a few days ago that he was “not concerned with the very poor” has been widely condemned throughout the media, and the President’s campaign team is gleefully taping millions of dollars in attacks ads using the quote as we speak. The comment was hailed as an example of his rich man’s inability to empathize with those less fortunate. Even the spectacle of another rich white guy with famous hair endorsing Romney hasn’t pushed the comments off the front burner this morning. And so far, none of the pundits are digging any deeper into what Romney is saying and defending him – although Mark Halperin did make a half hearted effort yesterday on one of MSNBC’s panel programs. That’s unfortunate, because what Mitt said demonstrates that he understands the need to prioritize the government’s time and attention and that right now, the focus needs to be on the segment of America that needs the most help – the middle class.
Since the Great Depression, the United States has enacted sweeping programs at the federal, state and local levels to ensure that the very poor among us are taken care of. America in the early 1900s looked nothing like it does today, and the social safety net that we have erected over the last century didn’t exist. What social programs did exist were done at the local level, through churches and relief organizations often tied to religious organizations, like the Salvation Army. Relief programs that were run by government were almost exclusively at the local level, and what federal programs did exist were mostly in the form of pensions for Civil War veterans and other former service members. These programs were often unpopular, and open to abuse. The specter of septuagenarian Civil War veterans marrying young girls to ensure them a future pension was all too real – the last Confederate Civil War pensioner, a widow, died in 2004.
That all changed after the Depression. From the 1930s to the present day, layer upon layer of social safety net programs exist to ensure that the very poor are at least given adequate shelter, food, access to health care and an education. Social Security in its various forms, Medicare, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (the former Aid for Families with Dependent Children program), food stamps, housing assistance, multiple layers of other state programs, mental health programs, free clinics – the list goes on and on. Since their inception, billions, if not trillions, of dollars have been spent on support for the poorest among us. America, as a whole, cares very much about the plight of the very poor and we’ve put our money where our mouth is.
And I know this from experience. My family was never rich. We were middle class, but after my parents divorced, my mom was forced to go back to work on her own and take care of my younger brother who was unable to work. She was the epitome of the working poor and she took advantage of many of these programs to help her stay afloat, especially when I was in college and couldn’t help support her. Today, she receives long term care under medicaid. These programs work and they remain available to the poorest among us.
But it doesn’t take experience to know this. Anyone in government or who aspires to serve in government knows this. Mitt certainly knows this. This is the point he was trying to make. And it’s a valid one.
America has done a good job of taking care of the very poor. They enjoy a level of support that the poor in other countries could only dream of. We Americans are a generous people and we have no short supply of empathy.
As someone who has donated millions to charity, including the charitable works of his church, Romney has demonstrated empathy in a meaningful way – by giving of the fruits of his own labors to those in need. But he also recognizes, as we all should, that the problems facing America today aren’t the problems strictly of the “very poor.” Poverty is always a problem, but it is a problem that America has addressed directly and continues to address. The problems we face today are the problems of the one group of Americans who rarely ask for help and rarely get it – the middle class. Other than unemployment insurance, there are few, if any, programs that were designed strictly with the middle class in mind. So today, when the middle class is facing a foreclosure crisis, when unemployment remains at unacceptable levels, and when even more people are underemployed and can’t make ends meet, we should be focusing our attention on solving those issues.
And those issues are solvable. Turning our economy around is the quickest way to solve these problems and it will help every American, rich or poor. When Mitt Romney says he isn’t concerned about the very poor, it’s not because he lacks empathy. It’s because he recognizes that we’ve done our utmost to support those folks and it’s time we focus on where the most pressing and urgent problems in America lay.
Anything else is just what we call in the political business “optics.” I, for one, am tired of Presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who can pledge to high heaven that they feel our pain but only add to it by ignoring problems that need to be solved or solving problems that don’t exist in order to score cheap political points. Romney may have not expressed himself as eloquently as he could have, but for those of us who were listening to what he was saying – not simply hearing the words – we understood. Romney’s most vociferous opponents in the Republican primary have long said that words aren’t enough, that we need actions to prove whether someone is being genuine. Here is one example where Romney’s actions demonstrate the truth – he is as empathetic to the plight of the poorest among us as anyone else in America. So anyone claiming he lacks empathy is going to need more than a soundbite to prove their case.
Mitt was right – we’ve taken care of the poor. It’s time to fix the economy so the rest of America can get back on its feet.
