Math and the Wisdom of COMMON SENSE

The PHOENIX

When I first started writing this blog I said that I was doing so because of my own personal frustration with all of the political bickering - from Washington to one's local city government - that was resulting in either spending cuts to or failure to pass bills that resulted in some kind of negative impact on the poor.  Since then, I've been trying to wrap my mind around some of the numbers that may be important to understand if one wants to change this reality.  Will try today to look at some of those findings and hope that this information helps make the case that THE NUMBERS ARE ON THE SIDE OF THE POOR! 

First, the latest estimation is that more than 15% of the US population is considered to be POOR. They get that number by creating what they call a "poverty threshold". That means that if your family's (not exactly sure what that term means...two parents and two kids?) annual income is $23,492 (yes...it's that specific!) or less then you're poor.  Now...if my math is correct...that means that this "family" brings in about $450 a month! (not exactly sure how much that means you actually have to spend...do you also pay local, state and national taxes?)  So...my assumption is that poor here really means DESTITUTE! More about this number later.  

But, for the moment, for the sake of argument, let's use that 15% number.  According to the POPULATION CLOCK http://www.census.gov/popclock/ the current US population is 318,266,543.  Now...by current I mean the number that was on the clock at the very moment when I typed that number!  Given the more for a birth and the less for a death, that number increases by 1 every 13 seconds! So, at the moment, using this poverty threshold dollar amount, it means that there are about 45,000,000 poor people in the US. One can, however, only begin to imagine what that number is when one asks a person "do you consider yourself poor?" If we double the monthly salary to $900..thus doubling the poverty number...we're up to over 90,000,000 people. (and...seriously...if the "average family" is 4 people...what is life like for you on $900 a month?) I'm not even sure what one would consider a wage high enough to call yourself a "middle class family"? I'll leave that up to you.  But, when you think about how many poor people there are, you may want to back up and click on the POPULATION CLOCK link...because those numbers have been rising and rising even while I'm writing this. 

By the way, if you think that doubling that $900 figure might work for you, that would mean there are more poor people in the US than all of the people who voted in the last Presidential Election!

Now, I realize that we're talking total number of poor here, not the number of poor that are 18 years and older who can vote....well...just reduce whatever total number works for you by 20%. (And yes...any number I'm using here can be GOOGLED!)

Anyway....can we at least agree that we're talking BIG NUMBERS here?

Now...add to that whatever you can imagine might be the number of people who might also vote for a "Phoenix Party Endorsed Candidate" just because they care about or work in service to the poor?  Think of all the nuns...priests...ministers...rabbis....parish groups...social activists....people who "used to be poor" and have not forgotten....those people who are just plain tired of all of the bipartisan bickering....cutbacks...pain and sadness...well...you get the picture.  WE'RE TALKING BIG, BIG, BIG NUMBERS!!!

Yesterday, on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown" program, they shared the following numbers:

8 million small donors = $500 million

4,600 big donors = $500 million

We can think about political donations in a moment...but...just look at those numbers for a second: 8,000,000 vs. 4,600.  What if that number wasn't about $$$...what if it was about the number of VOTES?!?!?!  

If every poor person just donated $10 the number donated by those 4,600 big donors would be doubled!!!  I've mentioned previously that I spent a number of years working with teachers in Slovakia helping them restructure their education system.  When I got there they'd built a new school/training center. But, the school didn't have a library.  I came home and told several principals (think it was 2...might have been 3) that maybe we could start a "Pennies for Slovakia" fund.  While we're talking a rate of currency exchange, within several months those 3 schools had collected enough pennies to buy enough books to create an entire school library. So, I'm less and less concerned about how much money really wins elections.  We have only to consider Eric Cantor's recent loss. Eric Cantor - who spent more on buying lunch for his donors than his opponent spent on his entire campaign!!!

Now, try as I might, I couldn't quite figure out how much money the Koch Brothers - David and Charles - actually invest in trying to control politics in this country. Let's just say it's LOTS!!! But, for at least all that I can find, it doesn't seem like they actually BUY VOTES! (That would mean some accusation of VOTER FRAUD. It seems like there are enough people in this country who really dislike the Koch Brothers, I'm sure that if they were actually found to be buying votes, that word would get out!  But, what they do do is pay people to work at Polling Places and those people are there to INTIMIDATE voters. 

While it does seem like they invest a great deal of money - millions - to influence/control the political process -  that amount should also be put in some perspective. If you air a commercial in your local TV market it could cost about $1500 for each time that 30 second spot runs.  Now, think of the last political campaign in your area.  How many times - a day - did one candidate's commercial run? How many months BEFORE the election did those commercials begin? And, if the candidate is running for a state office, that's $1500 a pop for each commercial in each television market in your area. Remember...that's one commercial for one channel! How many channels are there in your area?  And, we're only talking about airing the commercials, we haven't even begun to talk about how much does it cost to actually make the commercial in the first place? 

Finally, we've only been talking about the costs involved in creating and airing commercials on your local TV channel.  Multiply those costs by how many people are running for office. This is a Midterm year - that means all 435 members of the House of Representatives are running for office as well as 33 Senators and 36 Governors. (won't even get into the number of state representatives/senators or mayors). And, so far, we're only talking about TV commercials....not radio...not newspaper ads...print mailers, campaign office rentals, billboards, travel and so on. So, the question is - just how far does all this political money get you?  And why consider all of these political offices? Because at each of these levels of government politicians are making political decisions that financially affect our lives!

Why am I spending all this time talking about all these numbers?  Because...that's the BOTTOM LINE...NUMBERS COUNT!!!

And, if you consider yourself Poor and you're old enough to vote and you can get together with the other eligible voters who are Poor too and, finally, if you can get together with all of those people who are willing to vote for candidates who support efforts to make the lives of the Poor better....and you're NOT INTIMIDATED by the kinds of people the Koch Brothers might put at your polling location...DON'T YOU GET IT???  VICTORY IS DEFINITELY WITHIN YOUR GRASP!!!  

We tend to think that THE TEA PARTY is an incredibly powerful voice in our elections. While that may be true, remember, only 10% of the population identifies itself as a member of that party. And, I can't imagine the fact that part of that 10% are also included in the population % that's considered Poor.  The TEA PARTY doesn't have the NUMBERS...what they have is ENTHUSIASM! That's why I titled this post "MATH AND THE WISDOM OF COMMON SENSE"  If voters can just use COMMON SENSE...just look at the NUMBERS...isn't making the EFFORT to go out and have the COURAGE..THE ENTHUSIASM TO VOTE worth it?  I hope so!