What a week it has been.
The U.K. left the EU. Trump visited Bangor. First lady Ann LePage got a summer job. A 10-foot snake was spotted eating a beaver in Westbrook.
Lots of noise, no doubt, that must have been music to the ears of the LePage administration. Before this cacophonous week descended upon us, the administration was identified in a piece published in this paper as having redirected millions meant to help poor families with kids. It’s a move one imagines even the governor’s most unapologetic supporters would be unable to get behind. But fortunately for Teflon LePage, with all of this noise, the shocking revelation has received little attention.
In short, according to the BDN article, the state used at least $7.8 million in “unspent federal welfare funds in an ‘innovative’ way that would direct more money to services for elderly and disabled Mainers.”
Federal money used in an “innovative” way to support elderly and disabled Mainers? What could be the problem?
Well, the issue is that those funds were legally bound to be spent on needy families with children because bountiful research shows that investing in these families is legitimately helpful despite how one might feel about assistance overall.
So it appears that all this “innovative” redirection was illegal. And there has been relative radio silence on this since, what with the Brits and the snakes and the governor wagging his finger about the sorts of foods to people on public assistance should be able to buy. For governors trying to get away with shady policies under the radar, 2016 has been a doozy of a year.
It would seem that a foundation of the administration’s justification of this seemingly illegal reprioritization is built on a rhetorical and nearly Orwellian massaging of language. The redirection may be unlawful, sure, but it’s redirection from “able-bodied people” to disabled and elderly people.
Think about that for a second. How many times have you heard these phrases thrown around without even thinking about them? As a taxpayer, don’t you want your money to go to people who need it most? Of course you do. Aren’t people who are disabled in more need than people who are able-bodied?
And that’s why this is such effective political rhetoric, used to justify even an unlawful redirection of federal funds.
The first issue with the positioning of “able-bodied” or “disabled” is that it’s entirely misleading and dismissive of issues that can be extraordinarily debilitating to those facing them without technically qualifying as a disability. A survivor of rape or sexual abuse, for example, is able-bodied, as is someone who struggles with mental illness. A child who lives in the turbulence of poverty may be able-bodied, as their parents may be, but the trauma inflicted by a life of poverty can be incredibly debilitating. It can have profound, lasting effects on the child’s ability to perform in an educational setting and, in the long run, a professional environment. Poverty can be a multipronged psychological assault, and it can have crippling lifelong effects.
None of this even mentions that the choice to withdraw funding from children facing poverty is a terrible approach to long-term economic development, as it does nothing to prepare our future workforce for the information economy.
So by this point you’re probably thinking, “Sure, but what about the disabled and elderly? Why aren’t they a priority, too?”
They absolutely should be, and this leads to the second issue with this sort of rhetorical positioning. The language of “reprioritizing Maine’s welfare system to best serve our neediest elderly and disabled neighbors” creates a false “either/or” dichotomy.
In the case of the millions in redirected funds, taking funds earmarked for “able-bodied” children and giving them to the elderly appears to have been illegal. Even if it wasn’t, we can still collectively value supporting both groups for different reasons. The only time we don’t have the flexibility to do this and are put into an either/or position, is when those in power, say, oppose Medicaid expansion and force these manifestations of Sophie’s choice.
Behind the rhetoric is more of the same from the LePage administration: a shell game — in this case, one that challenges the law — designed to make dumb choices look like they were thoughtful and strategic.
Don’t let this raucous week — hell, this raucous year — enable LePage and company to get away with such callousness.
This sort of rhetorical maneuvering, manufactured to distract us from the fact that they are taking money away from poor kids, exposes LePage and his administration once again for being the brazen, fat cat caricatures of politicians they’re always assuring us they are not.
Alex Steed has written about and engaged in politics since he was a teenager. He’s an owner-partner of a Portland-based content production company and lives with his family, dogs and garden in Cornish.
