The United States Senate likes to be called the world’s greatest deliberative body. Other people actually called it that, too. When De Tocqueville described it in 1838, it sounded more like a combination of a university faculty and Microsoft board of directors than today’s auction house.
America is more than a month into a humanitarian monetary crisis. Almost a million federal workers have been going without paychecks, although a three-week compromise on reopening the government was just reached Friday. But the lost federal jobs amounts to at least twice that many Americans deprived of the basic means of comfort, maybe survival. Next in line for deprivation is local businesses. People cutting corners are going to eat cheap and cut out options, like restaurants, shows, vacations, repairs, and even medical care. That puts more people out of work.
Money has a property that economists call velocity. A dollar injected at the poor end of the scale changes hands rapidly and will add more than a dollar, maybe several more, to the economy that year. That’s why raising minimum wage often improves a local economy. If the burger flippers can’t buy the burgers, who will?
An extra dollar to a millionaire might not even be noticed, it’s not even a round off error. It works that way in the other direction, only worse. A dollar not paid, is a dollar that cannot be spent, that deprives someone else of a dollar to spend. This is how recessions are caused. Most senators are already millionaires, some many times over. A few dollars here or there hardly matter to them. Their salary is almost a bonus they could live without, and comes with a lifetime pension. It can make them unable to relate to wage earners who live from paycheck to paycheck. Workers buy bread and milk, creating jobs for others. Most pay rent or a mortgage. Workers pay taxes that support other workers.
Sure, there are problems on the Southern Border, always have been and there always will because it’s a border. Especially, because it’s a border between wealth and poverty. A border between illegal drugs and illegal drug users. It’s also a border that has ends. Maybe another wall would help, maybe it’s not the best way to spend billions of dollars. In any case, if government had the money in hand it would take years to build it, while Americans and their children are in un-necessary distress right now.
It’s time for the Senate to get back to work. Hammer out a deal with the House that puts people back to work before the negative velocity causes another recession. While they are at it, they can fund more border positions, jobs, and facilities that are needed but not controversial.
Unemployment is bipartisan. Some senators and most Representatives are ready and willing to get to work and get it done, but as near as we can tell one man is abusing his power and keeps the entire Senate locked in park. When one man in a key position of power uses that power to block anyone else from doing their job and accomplishing what needs to be done that is plainly dictatorship. Is that man (who happens to be worth over $25 million) acting in the public interest, or is he acting to curry favor with another man who is apparently desperate to fulfill a campaign promise? Could they be under the thumb of someone none of us voted for? Which one is the dictator? George Washington warned us about entangling foreign alliances. Did he envision a clandestine, possibly subservient one like this appears to be?
Is the distress of several million Americans insufficient to inspire some action, or does it take a dramatic catastrophe, like another 9/11 or a stock market collapse? If it affected their stock portfolios, or business holdings maybe that would galvanize senators to action. Can a majority of senators overrule the partisan majority leader; why not? Unlike Speaker of The House, it is not a Constitutional position.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenski@gmail.com