In 1981 I was a Managing Attorney of the Senior Citizen Unit at The Legal Aid Society in Columbus, Ohio. Our ability to represent our clients was severely curtailed by President Reagan’s cut-off of funds to the Legal Service Corporation which distributed funds to agencies serving the legal needs of the poor, disabled and senior citizens through grants. Suddenly, we learned we could no longer be paid. Many left the agency. I remained, the sole attorney left to handle over 300 open cases. His reason? He disliked that our agencies sued the county, state and federal governments when benefits were illegally denied.
I found a part-time job at a toy store 5 nights a week and on Saturday and Sunday to pay my school loan. I became a live-in manager at two rooming houses for women students at The Ohio State University to provide a roof over my head. I took over the yard work and minor maintenance( I taught myself to tile the shower, repair locks and lay carpet)and installed soda machines in the basement to pay for transportation, phone service and medical care. My clients fared far worse.
Reagan laid off 2,840 workers, eliminated or reduced benefits to the poor. He also terminated every recipient of Social Security and SSI payments based on disability, requiring each person to reapply for benefits. He claimed massive fraud when the actual fraud rate for food stamps, for example, was one-tenth of 1 percent. This is the same time frame when a huge Savings and Loan fraud scandal decimated clients of Savings and Loans and saw bankers imprisoned for fraud.
Three of my clients died as a direct result of losing benefits. I was able file suit to get benefits restored. However, legal justice is a slow process. Court cases take time. Especially when hundreds thousands of cases increase docket constraints. Especially, when the attorneys who would represent persons with zero incomes also lost their jobs.
It was a brilliant strategy to reduce expenses so wealthy citizens and corporations could see a decrease in taxes. The public relations campaign his administration promoted claimed taxes were too high, public benefits too costly, and “those people” too lazy to work. He also claimed a Nuer to be illustrated massive fraud.
It is difficult to survive such programmatic loss of income, housing,food and healthcare. But, particularly horrendous for those disabled and unable to work, or those aged and too exhausted and ill to work. This were the clients I watched suffer and die. There were many more I did not know. Many more who suffered or died across the country. Yes, it was temporary. How quickly would die living on the street? Hungry and without sufficient food? Unable to buy your insulin or blood pressure medication? Would you even seek medical care?
We are watching a much more massive attack on our fellow citizens and the institutions in place to meet all of our needs. Those discussing the anti-fraud hunt by private citizen Elon Musk mistakenly buy into the story. Let me give you a few reasons why the stories you are hearing about fraud are meaningless.
If a person on Social Security does not survive the full month, the benefit they received at the start of their month becomes an overpayment. It then must be paid back to the SSA. If you have ever settled an estate you know it takes months, if not years, to settle the decedent’s death. In fact, it may be there is no survivor to even notify creditors, including SSA, that the person has died.
For example, my own mother died of cancer. She died on the 27th. Of February. As a result, the Social Security check she had received and used became an overpayment. If she had died on the 28th. She would have remained entitled to the check. How many of those the media says appear as overpayments are truly simple accounting practices in motion, some slower than others. Even when the overpayments are cleared and checks no longer mailed out or deposited because the recipient’s mail is returned or bank account is closed, there may have been no death notice to SSA so the person issued a SS card remains on the books even though they are no longer receiving benefits. What we are hearing on the news is an over simplistic analysis of complex situations handled by our pubic servants, civil service workers who know how to work their way through a system that covers every single person ever issued a SS card. Can you even balance your check book?
A second example illustrating the tendency to use propaganda rather than complex analysis delivering the “news”. As a law student I worked for IRS during tax season. I was one of thousands of temporary workers needed across the country to first help, print, count, package and ship tax forms. As the date arrived for returns to be filed, I shifted to a temporary location to review and approve returns, checking for errors and calculation for payments due or the issuance of refunds for individual taxpayers. Others were hired to audit the returns. And others handled more complex corporate returns. Inspectors reviewed our work on a daily basis. We were sworn to secrecy and not permitted to discuss or disclose any information on the forms we reviewed, even among ourselves.
Since that time the work forces at SSA and IRS have been greatly reduced. They are now being decimated. Who will guard our information? Who will assure the data describing our earnings and payments will be accurate and forthcoming? The Inspectors General have been fired. The leadership is being removed because they know they are required by law to hold the information in total confidentiality, and resist the prying eyes of non-employees demanding access for no stated purpose based on fact or substantiated cause. In trying to protect us and follow the law they are losing their jobs.
This is not business as usual. This is a continuation of attempts to hamstring care for our citizenry in order to benefit a few which began with a President Reagan and has been on-going for 40 years. Propaganda works. The attacks on, and underfunding of, public education over these 40 years has made it easier to believe propaganda. The attacks on labor unions and decrease in actual wages has left less time for self-education, civic involvement, and attention to detail in families now needing 2-4 jobs to keep a roof over their heads.
Do not listen to what is being said to you. Watch what is being done to you: increasing unemployment, un-regulated union-busting which decreases wages, more people losing housing, going hungry, unable to access health care… more suffering…more death. All for no good purpose. Actually, for no purpose whatever; other than to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Is this what you voted for?
I paint to find a soothing space where words subside and bliss abides. This is my most recent project. I hope it soothes your soul and cheers your heart during these stressful days.
FIGHTING WORDS
Poetry has fled.
Art hides in plain sight
behind clouds of flame,
beyond winds of change,
before plutocrats take the stage,
no longer waiting behind the scenes
which hide their rage.
Words have lost all meaning
when facts go unchecked
flung too fast to sustain truth
and belief in its power to right wrongs
for the weak and the poor,
tossed aside by courts which cower
fearing loss of wealth and power.
Which words are safe when lies procure
the party in power’s silent vote to score
total control of each life, each thought,
each breath threatened by dirty schemes
to pollute the earth, water and air?
Words cannot be spoken, claimed by death
of the rule of law.
No words exist to describe the depravity
some of us saw
as our words lay dying
first inside
then outside
where meaning can be lost.
Words remain frozen in heavy frost,
weighed down by cold hearts
and dead souls
seeking total control.
Freedom resides in words
which too often remain unsaid.
Words too softly spoken to wake
those asleep, escaping, all hopes dead.
Too few words of truth must compete
with an onslaught of unchecked lies.
I listen and watch, lost in thought.
I write and I plead against what we have wrought.
Poetry, I fear, carries too-little weight.
Poetry, perhaps, has waited too late
to escape the threat when so many lies
have buried the truth for power and greed.
Money has always been the creed
clothed in religion and faith
which grants God’s grace
to those who deserve to see His face
on dollar bills and hung on towers.
False gods seek our praise as they devour
a country whose best citizens
refuse to use their power to remain free,
and would rather lose their democracy.
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