On: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still l...

[JaimeThompson]

The problem for a lot of the poor and middle class is their elected officials will not talk to them since they don't donate to them. Take Texas for example it is rare for the Texas Senators to actually talk to normal people anymore.

[JoeAltmaier → JaimeThompson]

It's a hard problem. Texas has 27 million residents. And 2 Senators. If they spent an hour a day talking to constituents and spent 15 minutes with each one, it would take 16,875 years to talk to each one, once.

[MomoXenosaga → JoeAltmaier]

The only people senators want to talk to is their donors. Money is speech.

[JoeAltmaier → MomoXenosaga]

There was even a SchoolHouse Rock episode about that - how lobbyists represent money, and money represents people, so it's all nice and democratic!

[JaimeThompson → JoeAltmaier]

Even in their public forums they typically vet those allowed in. Donors don't have much of a problem talking to them.

They forget they represent everyone, not just those who fund them.

[mrguyorama → JaimeThompson]

Also half of those people think that a bailout of the middle class would be communism

[pasquinelli → mrguyorama]

maybe but i doubt they'd turn it down. what people think isn't always what people think.

[bduerst → pasquinelli]

Oh, they wouldn't turn it down, but they would support whatever they could to prevent it from happening.

It's a weird form of irrational behavior that falls under economic animosity.