Come Together

I’ve been working most all my life. The summer I was thirteen I was digging trenches with my step-grandfather, and at fourteen, when I was old enough to legally work, I flipped burgers. It wasn’t that I had to work; my parents took care of me. I liked money. I wanted my own. Then I got pregnant (which cost me my burger job) and it was no longer a choice. I gave birth a month after I turned fifteen, and I’ve been working ever since. My daughter’s father was worthless and couldn’t be relied upon for help. Over the years, when I could locate him, I threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t pony up some dough to buy diapers or pay for daycare, and he did. Until he could escape again. I just didn’t have time to chase him. In seventeen years, he may have given me a total of a thousand dollars. My parents helped me a great deal, and I worked.

When I was eighteen, a friend and I rented a little duplex apartment. I was waiting tables, making just enough to pay the bills. My roommate had to go to Chicago for a couple months, and wouldn’t be able to cover her half, so my boyfriend at the time agreed to stay with me while she was gone and pay her portion. He left me to shack up with some old girlfriend just as all the bills were coming due. I panicked. I didn’t want to ask my parents for money, they’d done enough. A friend suggested welfare. I wanted no part of that, never had. Not even Medicaid when I was pregnant. He told me I was the kind of person it was designed for, a working mother who just needs help temporarily, until I got back on my feet. Eventually, I relented.
I choked down my pride and went to the social services office. There I was informed that my $200 a week in tips was too much income, they couldn’t do anything for me. I was flabbergasted.
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t make any less without quitting my job!” I cried.
“There you go.” The social worker said.
“You’re telling me that if I quit my job the government will pay my bills, but if I do everything I can for myself, I’m on my own? Are you serious?”
“That’s how it works.”
I was irate. “No thanks.” I stormed out.
This is not verbatim; I seem to recall pitching a huge hissy fit in that office and using some colorful language to demonstrate how outraged I was, but you get the gist.
Up to that point, I don’t think I ever thought much about the government; I just had a vague notion of a bunch of old men in suits sitting around smoking cigars and making up new laws. They had no effect on my life. But now they were to be scorned for their absurdity, and definitely not to be trusted.

Over the next couple of days, I discovered a way to make plenty of money. I wasn’t hurting anyone, didn’t steal anything, and I was able to comfortably support myself and my daughter. For the next nine years I operated on the fringes of the law, doing construction and restaurant work a few months a year to have something to show the IRS. I wasn’t able to have a meaningful romantic relationship, but I didn’t mind. I never met anyone worth giving up my money for. Until five years ago.

I fell in love with a guy I met in a bar, and I gave it up and never looked back. I got a job in a casino making decent money and we got married. We bought a house, got some dogs, and lived like a normal family. My husband had worked full time in college, paid his own way. He has a good job. We have a bunch of credit cards and a substantial mortgage, and we’ve always paid them. On time, every time. We pay our taxes, even when they doubled the tax value of our house last year, and raised the property taxes accordingly. My Dad moved in with me in January of last year, and helped me start a business as a tile contractor. I got work right away, and soon the business was prospering. It’s back-breaking work, but it’s satisfying to create something out of nothing, to make a house look beautiful, and the money is great.

And then all of the sudden, it screeched to a halt. Nobody’s building anything! No one can get a loan to buy anything! The last house I put tile in is still sitting on the market, to this day. It turns out that the banks in this country have royally screwed us all. Apparently they’ve been extending credit to people they should’ve known wouldn’t be able to pay it back, and now that they’re not paying it back, the banks are in trouble. Big trouble. They can’t loan ANYONE money now, bringing our economy to a standstill. They cried for help, and the Bush administration responded with a bailout of $700 billion. AIG executives immediately took a much deserved $400,000 vacation, and their mulit-million dollar bonuses. Don’t forget their bonuses!
Well, this unbelievable amount of taxpayer money didn’t do the trick. Things have only gotten worse. I can’t imagine why. It makes perfect sense to pour massive amounts of money into the hands of the very same people who brought the American economy to its knees! They’ll be able to fix it if we just give them some money! Right? RIGHT?

Of course not. That’s asinine. They’re irresponsible. They wielded a great deal of power in this country, and they abused it wholeheartedly. I cannot begin to fathom the so-called logic behind this corporate welfare. Oh wait, it does ring a bell though. I do seem to recall from my encounter with the government that the policy is this: If you do the wrong thing, and then sit on your ass and ask the government to pay your bills, they’ve got your back. If you do the right thing, they’ve got nothing for ya.

I am now flipping burgers again, for $7.25 an hour. There’s no construction work to be done, and I’m lucky to even have this job, or so they tell me. Funny, I don’t feel lucky. Hundreds of dollars worth of tools sit rusting in my carport, useless. Bank executives continue to jet around in private planes, flaunting their billions, OUR billions, in our faces, and every time I ask ‘Would you like fries with that?’ another little piece of my soul dies.

A couple of months ago, out of the blue, the interest rates on our credit cards doubled, and the limits were lowered to just above the balance. We hadn’t done anything different; we still paid all those bills on time, as hard as it’s been. When we asked them why, they told us it was because the economy was bad and other people weren’t paying their bills, so they had to make up the money somewhere. I’m not kidding. They outright admitted that, I have it in writing. Are they serious? Do they honestly think that after all these years of faithfully paying those payments, doing what we’re supposed to do, that they can turn on us, ruin our credit rating, cause the economy to collapse, in turn costing me my livelihood, and we’re going to cover their asses? I don’t think so. No sir, not me. We kept up our end of the deal, but what they’re trying to do to us now amounts to extortion. They’ll never see another penny from us. Guess that little plan backfired, huh?

Now the new administration in Washington is throwing more money at them. I can’t even believe it. It boggles the mind. I filed my taxes last week. They want another $700 from me. They taxed the everloving hell out of my husband all year, but it’s not enough. They want more, more, more! Those banks have got to get their money!

Well, they’re not getting it from me. I get taxed every time I turn around, and I’ve given all I’m going to give. I don’t even let my lazy brother-in-law freeload off of us; I’m certainly not supporting a bunch of billionaire bankers. No. Hell no.

I have had enough.

I think a lot of people have had enough of this. It is our duty as American citizens to keep the federal government in check. When they get too big for their britches, it’s our job to even the playing field. This has nothing to do with political parties or social issues. Forget all those differences between Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians and Independents. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with me about gay marriage or censorship. Nobody’s going to care who’s sleeping with whom, or who’s reading what if we’re all struggling just to feed ourselves! Uncle Sam has his hand in all our pockets, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It’s time we come together as Americans, stand as one and put the old men in Washington in their place. Their job is to serve the people of this country, to represent what we want. And I don’t think anybody wants to work to support giant corporations who should have gone under due to their own negligence and poor business practices. Instead of being led like sheep to the slaughter, let us all stand up and let them know how we feel about this. I know I won’t be handing out any more money for them to waste this year. And on April 15th, I’ll be protesting as loudly as possible. We should all be doing that.

All those in favor, say aye!