It would take too long to list ALL the ways I, and my family, have benefitted from governmental assistance, but here's a short list:
1) When I was a kid and we didn't have a lot of money, we went to the food bank, which received a big heap of government assistance. I also received subsidized school lunch. Was it in the era where Reagan argued that ketchup was a vegetable? Yes. But you can get really far on the calories in ketchup, justifiable vegetable or no.
2) When my oldest was still an only and an infant, my ex-husband got a winter layoff from his work as a union bricklayer. He got unemployment (government assistance!), but it wasn't enough to support a family of three and we couldn't pay our winter heat bill. We got assistance paying our heating bill and assistance replacing our old, inefficient refrigerator to control our on-going energy usage.
3) My oldest attended a Head Start pre-school, which allowed us to stop paying MASSIVE child care bills for two kids that basically wiped out the entirety of my income contribution to our household.
4) When my marriage crumbled unexpectedly and spectacularly, my two kids and I survived for a handful of months because of SNAP benefits.
To my mind, the best and primary point of government is pooling resources to take care of the vulnerable. I don't need the government to tell me what to do to be a good and (mostly) lawful person. I need them to do what can only be done well collectively, caring for those left behind by our system and evening the playing field.
Finally subscribed as a way to say THANK YOU for this. My parents were both career feds, I grew up and now live again in the DC area and it is... chaotic and sad and scary here. My kid goes to a Title I school and we have no idea what's going to happen to the programming (including meals) that comes with that. Seeing clinical trial appointments get canceled and not knowing if my sister's chemo will continue (to say nothing of paying for it, since her insurance is through NIH) is keeping me up at night. It's so easy to say "drain the swamp" and to react to how challenging it can be to deal with the bureaucracy on an individual level, but these are people. It's people doing the work, and it's people benefitting from the work.
It's so scary-- I think about that with my kids' Title I school too (even setting aside my parallel fear about how it'll be impacted by immigration raid), as well as for so many loved ones who rely on government healthcare services one way or another. But that's particularly really scary for your sister's chemo-- sending so much love there (and thank you to your parents for their careers in service!!).
Sara, I am in the Midwest and have worked on a federal government contract for about 20 years and I have never once heard a political statement from any of the federal workers that I considered colleagues. They were there to help make the Medicare and Medicaid programs the best they could be within the constraints of whatever administration they were serving. What is happening now is such an insult to their service.
So, I am going to take this space as a place for sharing feelings about *all of this.* I saw a post the other day about how we need to "Live to see them die," ("them" being the people responsible for destroying our gov't of course) and that's really the energy I have been carrying. A lot of people at the public station where I work have been stressing out, and I am surprised that I am... not? I think I am just too angry, and some part of me will not let these weird rich freaks have the pleasure of making me panic. They may be able to have everything else, but they can't have that!
I told one of my friends something a few weeks ago that I had heard somewhere else (that I now can't remember), that when someone wants to deny your humanity and make you disappear, every day that you keep living, you piss in their coffee. So yes, while I am a pacifist in many ways, spite is keeping me going in many ways right now, so I feel this. I plan to keep pissing in their coffee, among other things. :)
I work in transportation planning and a lot of our clients are smaller cities and agencies that are almost fully funded by federal money. Federal money builds your smaller local roads, not just highway mega projects! And sewers! And sidewalks!
Municipal transportation planner here! We were in a panic about the federal fund freeze. Federal dollars are funding local transportation projects - sidewalks, bus stops, light rail, street crossings, all kinds of safety improvements. You want to cross a street safely? The federal government is helping fund that. We truly do not appreciate the amount of government work it takes to keep the lights on in this country.
Absolutely! I'm on the private side, but we work for small cities and small agencies within larger cities to get their funding, permitting, construction, etc. done. Sidewalks/crosswalks/signals serving schools, drainage improvements so your roads and homes don't flood, safe rail crossings, demand response transit...those are the types of things for which we are coordinating federal funding. Often hyper local improvements, but not paid for locally - it's the feds! Or even if you think it's the state, it's federal money that's just distributed by the state!
This is where ignorance and misinformation really hurt us. I remember during the debate about the ACA seeing a person holding a sign at an anti-ACA protest that said "Keep government hands off my Medicare!" I think of that so often. The government needs a re-brand. It needs like a Nike ad exec. In other countries, you see signs for anything funded by USAID that says "a gift from the American people". I have mixed feelings about that, but maybe we need to start slapping signs on things that say "the federal government did this". But then there's also the scary reality that there are horrible people who really don't think they should pay for poor kids to eat and learn to read. Those people exist. And I hate them.
I'm typing this as I see the freeze order has been rescinded, but I think we all know that's worth the bits and paper it's written on.
I'm not sure most people realize that even a portion of what was being attempted through the freeze would have serious ripple effects on the entire economy. I just pulled a few hundred dollars a month of recurring expenses from my local economy to shore up my savings. I am not a federal worker or direct grant recipient, but the nature of my work and employer means I probably would be affected, if not immediately then within months. I'm glad the order was rescinded, but I'm not going to undo my budget changes yet.
It was 33 years including his service in WWII. He was a person of integrity and a rule follower and a hard worker, and he rose through the ranks at the Weather Service. It breaks my heart that tRump & co are trying to destroy our government.
And the government, unlike 99.9% of the charities in Alabama, doesn't force a person in need to endure more religious trauma or homophobia to get their basic needs met.
I think about that a lot. My wife grew up in a heavily LDS part of SE Idaho and in some ways, the Mormon Church does a lot of things for its members that could be considered social-democratic, but it's with strings attached.
I volunteered at a city-sponsored public private partnership warming center for the unhoused twice when the temps dipped this winter. Just the mural of the books of the Bible painted on the wall was triggering for me. But I guess no one with any power thought too hard or cared much how it might feel for someone with religious trauma and survivors of religious abuse to have to choose between sitting in that room or freezing to death.
After 9 years in city government I’ve seen how much bureaucrats really want to help people and make their city/state/federal government work well for the people, and how often they are obstructed or diminished in their ability to do so by some extremely stupid laws that legislatures enact. Or by the executive creating major obstacles to good work. This is very common. I’ve watched our city council enact some of the stupidest most regressive laws simply in the name of perceived compromise and/or optics. Many of them do not understand how policies play out and actually affect people. It is so frustrating and demoralizing to work under people who are so incompetent - mainly the people we elect. When the really great legislators come along, who know their shit and understand what good policy is, we celebrate. When executives come in and know how to make hard but equitable decisions, when they know how to govern instead of just knowing what to say to win an election, those are the most rewarding times in public service.
Keep an eye on the people the executive appoints; they can be some of the government’s most insidious actors. Department heads, czars, etc. They take way less flak than the executive and can often move about in relative obscurity. They serve at the pleasure of the executive (few/no job protections beyond loyalty), but they enact the agenda of the executive. And they dictate the work plans of their staff, your government employees. They have very little external motivation to do anything the executive does not endorse. They get fired for standing up to their elected boss. And as such they are accountable only to the executive and not to the people.
TJ, I know you enjoy trolling me and that's fine. You have my email address and are welcome to email me at any time. I'm deleting this comment, though, and finally blocking you from posting here. This isn't an attack on me, it's a denial of reality for many people who read and are a beautiful part of my community. There are plenty of places on the internet for you to state this false opinion and, once again, if you actually want to discuss this or any of the many disagreements you have with me in good faith, I have offered you my email.
I sincerely mean this- I hope you're well and that you have a great day.
It would take too long to list ALL the ways I, and my family, have benefitted from governmental assistance, but here's a short list:
1) When I was a kid and we didn't have a lot of money, we went to the food bank, which received a big heap of government assistance. I also received subsidized school lunch. Was it in the era where Reagan argued that ketchup was a vegetable? Yes. But you can get really far on the calories in ketchup, justifiable vegetable or no.
2) When my oldest was still an only and an infant, my ex-husband got a winter layoff from his work as a union bricklayer. He got unemployment (government assistance!), but it wasn't enough to support a family of three and we couldn't pay our winter heat bill. We got assistance paying our heating bill and assistance replacing our old, inefficient refrigerator to control our on-going energy usage.
3) My oldest attended a Head Start pre-school, which allowed us to stop paying MASSIVE child care bills for two kids that basically wiped out the entirety of my income contribution to our household.
4) When my marriage crumbled unexpectedly and spectacularly, my two kids and I survived for a handful of months because of SNAP benefits.
To my mind, the best and primary point of government is pooling resources to take care of the vulnerable. I don't need the government to tell me what to do to be a good and (mostly) lawful person. I need them to do what can only be done well collectively, caring for those left behind by our system and evening the playing field.
Look at that list! And think of a world (and your life) without that list!
I can’t even imagine how many times I and mine could have fallen through the cracks.
Finally subscribed as a way to say THANK YOU for this. My parents were both career feds, I grew up and now live again in the DC area and it is... chaotic and sad and scary here. My kid goes to a Title I school and we have no idea what's going to happen to the programming (including meals) that comes with that. Seeing clinical trial appointments get canceled and not knowing if my sister's chemo will continue (to say nothing of paying for it, since her insurance is through NIH) is keeping me up at night. It's so easy to say "drain the swamp" and to react to how challenging it can be to deal with the bureaucracy on an individual level, but these are people. It's people doing the work, and it's people benefitting from the work.
It's so scary-- I think about that with my kids' Title I school too (even setting aside my parallel fear about how it'll be impacted by immigration raid), as well as for so many loved ones who rely on government healthcare services one way or another. But that's particularly really scary for your sister's chemo-- sending so much love there (and thank you to your parents for their careers in service!!).
Sara, I am in the Midwest and have worked on a federal government contract for about 20 years and I have never once heard a political statement from any of the federal workers that I considered colleagues. They were there to help make the Medicare and Medicaid programs the best they could be within the constraints of whatever administration they were serving. What is happening now is such an insult to their service.
Agreed, Jean.
So, I am going to take this space as a place for sharing feelings about *all of this.* I saw a post the other day about how we need to "Live to see them die," ("them" being the people responsible for destroying our gov't of course) and that's really the energy I have been carrying. A lot of people at the public station where I work have been stressing out, and I am surprised that I am... not? I think I am just too angry, and some part of me will not let these weird rich freaks have the pleasure of making me panic. They may be able to have everything else, but they can't have that!
We are going to be out here dancing and taking care of one another long after their plans have failed!
I told one of my friends something a few weeks ago that I had heard somewhere else (that I now can't remember), that when someone wants to deny your humanity and make you disappear, every day that you keep living, you piss in their coffee. So yes, while I am a pacifist in many ways, spite is keeping me going in many ways right now, so I feel this. I plan to keep pissing in their coffee, among other things. :)
What a line! And what a way to live one's pacifism and spite at the same time!
I work in transportation planning and a lot of our clients are smaller cities and agencies that are almost fully funded by federal money. Federal money builds your smaller local roads, not just highway mega projects! And sewers! And sidewalks!
Such a good point!! And as the parent of a transit obsessed son who wants to be a transportation planner, thank you!
Municipal transportation planner here! We were in a panic about the federal fund freeze. Federal dollars are funding local transportation projects - sidewalks, bus stops, light rail, street crossings, all kinds of safety improvements. You want to cross a street safely? The federal government is helping fund that. We truly do not appreciate the amount of government work it takes to keep the lights on in this country.
Absolutely! I'm on the private side, but we work for small cities and small agencies within larger cities to get their funding, permitting, construction, etc. done. Sidewalks/crosswalks/signals serving schools, drainage improvements so your roads and homes don't flood, safe rail crossings, demand response transit...those are the types of things for which we are coordinating federal funding. Often hyper local improvements, but not paid for locally - it's the feds! Or even if you think it's the state, it's federal money that's just distributed by the state!
This is all so, so important
100%!!!
This is where ignorance and misinformation really hurt us. I remember during the debate about the ACA seeing a person holding a sign at an anti-ACA protest that said "Keep government hands off my Medicare!" I think of that so often. The government needs a re-brand. It needs like a Nike ad exec. In other countries, you see signs for anything funded by USAID that says "a gift from the American people". I have mixed feelings about that, but maybe we need to start slapping signs on things that say "the federal government did this". But then there's also the scary reality that there are horrible people who really don't think they should pay for poor kids to eat and learn to read. Those people exist. And I hate them.
I think a lot about that messaging aspect, for sure.
I'm typing this as I see the freeze order has been rescinded, but I think we all know that's worth the bits and paper it's written on.
I'm not sure most people realize that even a portion of what was being attempted through the freeze would have serious ripple effects on the entire economy. I just pulled a few hundred dollars a month of recurring expenses from my local economy to shore up my savings. I am not a federal worker or direct grant recipient, but the nature of my work and employer means I probably would be affected, if not immediately then within months. I'm glad the order was rescinded, but I'm not going to undo my budget changes yet.
We're all connected! So much more than we recognize!
Thank you so much for this. I’m a federal government employee and it helps to know that people see the good we do.
We do! And I know you all don't get to hear that enough. Sending love and support as you navigate it all, Kyle.
I got Pell Grants when I went to school. My kid does, too, but he says they didn't show up in his account this semester.
Gonna cross fingers that your kid's Pell Grants show up!
Two kids. I just talked to my other college student, and she said she didn't get her Pell Grants this semester either.
After reading this post I gave the kids I tutor through Americorps extra hugs.
Thank you!
My father worked for the federal government for 30 years. I’m glad he’s not around to see this shit show.
Thirty years is a long career of public service!
It was 33 years including his service in WWII. He was a person of integrity and a rule follower and a hard worker, and he rose through the ranks at the Weather Service. It breaks my heart that tRump & co are trying to destroy our government.
And the government, unlike 99.9% of the charities in Alabama, doesn't force a person in need to endure more religious trauma or homophobia to get their basic needs met.
I think about that a lot. My wife grew up in a heavily LDS part of SE Idaho and in some ways, the Mormon Church does a lot of things for its members that could be considered social-democratic, but it's with strings attached.
I volunteered at a city-sponsored public private partnership warming center for the unhoused twice when the temps dipped this winter. Just the mural of the books of the Bible painted on the wall was triggering for me. But I guess no one with any power thought too hard or cared much how it might feel for someone with religious trauma and survivors of religious abuse to have to choose between sitting in that room or freezing to death.
Thanks for adding a new essay to the usual Tuesday/Thursday cycle. Your thoughtful commentary is a nice reminder of all the kindness in the world.
Thank yo Marti (though I'll prob do the Thursday discussion on Friday this week to give folks one day off from my emails)
Thank you for posting this. It needed to be said. Norma Frank
thank you Norma!
Do you know Nadia Bollz-Weber? This 'tour' is in your bailiwick, I think. https://open.substack.com/pub/thecorners/p/newly-added-red-state-revival-dates?r=b5dvd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I do! And the tour looks terrific.
After 9 years in city government I’ve seen how much bureaucrats really want to help people and make their city/state/federal government work well for the people, and how often they are obstructed or diminished in their ability to do so by some extremely stupid laws that legislatures enact. Or by the executive creating major obstacles to good work. This is very common. I’ve watched our city council enact some of the stupidest most regressive laws simply in the name of perceived compromise and/or optics. Many of them do not understand how policies play out and actually affect people. It is so frustrating and demoralizing to work under people who are so incompetent - mainly the people we elect. When the really great legislators come along, who know their shit and understand what good policy is, we celebrate. When executives come in and know how to make hard but equitable decisions, when they know how to govern instead of just knowing what to say to win an election, those are the most rewarding times in public service.
Keep an eye on the people the executive appoints; they can be some of the government’s most insidious actors. Department heads, czars, etc. They take way less flak than the executive and can often move about in relative obscurity. They serve at the pleasure of the executive (few/no job protections beyond loyalty), but they enact the agenda of the executive. And they dictate the work plans of their staff, your government employees. They have very little external motivation to do anything the executive does not endorse. They get fired for standing up to their elected boss. And as such they are accountable only to the executive and not to the people.
TJ, I know you enjoy trolling me and that's fine. You have my email address and are welcome to email me at any time. I'm deleting this comment, though, and finally blocking you from posting here. This isn't an attack on me, it's a denial of reality for many people who read and are a beautiful part of my community. There are plenty of places on the internet for you to state this false opinion and, once again, if you actually want to discuss this or any of the many disagreements you have with me in good faith, I have offered you my email.
I sincerely mean this- I hope you're well and that you have a great day.
-Garrett