The Blue Voice

Saturday, March 04, 2006

A Break with Reality

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but every now and then I have one of those moments. I don't know how to describe it...I guess it's a break with reality or something. Not often and not for very long, but it's a little disconcerting.

I had one of those moments yesterday afternoon. I hadn't been online in several days and I was emptying my email inbox. There were a lot of newsletters and news headlines from various sources. It was all a few days old and not really "news" anymore, so I wasn't really reading - just scanning and deleting. Suddenly, a familiar name jumped out at me from a BuzzFlash mailing - Molly Orshansky. Who is that and why does that name seem so familiar? I clicked the link and was transported to an In These Times article called "Lies, Damn Lies and Poverty Statistics." It's an article talking about how the number of poor people is probably much larger than the Federal government is acknowledging because they're using such a poor statistical model to determine what the poverty line actually is.

As soon as I read enough to realize what the article was about, I had that moment I was talking about. For just a second or two, I thought, 'Wait a minute. This is old news. We took care of that a long time ago.' In about the time it took me to think that, I suddenly realized that I was confusing reality with an old episode of West Wing. Yes, the moderately liberal, fairly competent Bartlet administration had dealt with the problem, not the bunch of incompetent nincompoops we're dealing with in real life.

If you're not a fan of the show or missed "The Indians in the Lobby" episode, I'll recap: There are Indians, the Native American kind, in the lobby of the White House. It's Thanksgiving, everyone is leaving Washington as fast as they can, and these Indians had a meeting involving their land cancelled at the last minute. Now they're threatening to stay in the lobby or be arrested in front of the press. Molly Orshansky comes up in one of the subplots. The OMB is changing the poverty line standard and there's suddenly four million more poor people. Not really, they've been poor; the Federal government is just finally going to recognize that they're poor. This discombobulates the Bartlet White House. The reelection campaign is about to kick off after the New Year and they've suddenly got four million more poor people on their watch. They send Sam Seaborn to meet with the woman from OMB to get to the bottom of it. He's anxious to get on her good side...

CUT TO: INT. COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE - DAY
Sam meets BERNICE COLLETTE.

GINGER
Sam?

SAM
Yeah?

GINGER
Bernice Collette.

SAM
Thanks.

BERNICE
Hey Sam. [shakes hands with Sam]

SAM
How ya doing, Bernie?

BERNICE
Not wild about people calling me Bernie.

SAM
Sure. What should I call you?

BERNICE
Bernice is fine.

SAM
But how will you know I'm your buddy?

BERNICE
I'm okay living in the dark on that.

SAM
[pause] Okay.

[They start walking through the halls to the office.]

SAM
Can you tell me how the current standard was reached?

BERNICE
The new one?

SAM
The current one. The new one hasn't been signed off on.

BERNICE
We have to sign off on it.

[They stop outside Sam's office door.]

SAM
Why?

BERNICE
It's much more accurate.

SAM
Well how was the old one reached? The current one.

[They enter SAM'S OFFICE.]

BERNICE
In 1963, an eastern European immigrant named Mollie Orshansky, who was working over in Social Security, came up with it. Food was the most costly living expense where she came from.

SAM
Our cost of living formula for the last 40 years has been based on life in Poland during the Cold War?

BERNICE
This is what I'm talking about. I mean, food doesn't account for one-third of a family's
budget. Housing is more expensive than food. The current model also doesn't take into account transportation and health insurance. So let's call the current model the old model and sign off on the new model.

They continue the discussion in another scene or two. Sam is trying to convince Bernice to hold off on the implementation of the new standard. Bernice is adament that it needs to be done as soon as possible. The Bartlet administration tries to figure out how to sell it. They send Toby Ziegler to meet with the master political consultant, Bruno Gianelli...

TOBY
[chuckles] Listen, the OMB's gonna come out with a recommendation for a new way to calculate the poverty level.

BRUNO
Show of hands?

TOBY
No. But the formula raises the poverty level 2,000 in change.

BRUNO
So what is it now?

TOBY
20,000 a year. The problem is we're without a campaign and with 4 million new poor people.

BRUNO
That's the problem?

TOBY
Yeah.

BRUNO
Not that someone making 21,000 a year is considered comfortable?

TOBY
[looks at Bruno] We're working on that one, too.

BRUNO
You keep working on that, also the other thing.

TOBY
How?

BRUNO
The same way P.T. Barnum sold a truckload of white salmon.

[They stop walking and face each other.]

BRUNO
By sticking labels on them that said "Guaranteed not to go pink in the can." I have this fish thing going on today.

TOBY
What the hell are you--

BRUNO
Are you telling me this formula has been broken for years and the other guys haven't fixed it? [pause] Like that. Wanna get a quick drink?

TOBY
[turns to walk away] No, I've got nieces and nephews and... we'll meet Monday on this, okay?

BRUNO
A truckload of white salmon...have you ever even heard of white salmon?

TOBY
No. [walks away]

BRUNO
I could sell anything. [walks away]

So, to sum this all up: Molly Orshansky was a real person and we're still using her outdated formula to figure out who's poor in America (and eligible for government benefits.) This gang that couldn't shoot straight (and to be fair, the gang before them) never got around to fixing the broken formula. I think it's safe to say that $18,850 for a family of four is a little low. Can you really be considered middle class on $20,000 or $22,000 or even $25,000? Maybe one day we'll have some politicians that are halfway as competent or humane as the ones on TV and we'll have a better idea of the real number and what to do about it.

posted at 3:59:00 AM by fdtate

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