an idea ...

I'm getting political again. Somebody stop me ...

Oops, too late.

First of all, that my idea is at all political strikes me as odd. It is human. It involves politicians, however, so I suppose that is what shifts it from the realm of the human to the realm of the political.

I had this idea a month or so ago, but a tweet I saw on Twitter while I was taking my virtual evening stroll tonight reminded me of it. This evening, Alice Kirby (@Alice_Kirby), a disability activist based in the UK, brought up a similar idea. Maybe it's time to revisit it and put it out into the world, since evidently, I'm not the only person with this idea?

Alice Kirby tweeted (wrote, for those of you who don't speak Twitter) to the current Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, "How do you expect disabled people who are unfit for work to survive off £73 per week? Could you live off that?".

I've seen similar sentiments from others, as well. For example, when town halls were happening in the U.S. earlier this year (well, in places where the politicians actually showed up to meet with their constituents, but that's another discussion ...), people were asking the Congress to use the same health insurance as everyone else uses.

It's reasonable to ask our representatives to try to understand what we experience in our lives. How can a legislator legislate wisely without having some understanding of the practical implications of their decisions? And what better way of understanding is there than experience? I've written on this theme before, and it holds true here.

My idea: have legislators try to live on what they ask others to live on. It can be for a limited amount of time, but at least try it, no cheating.

Pick a benefit, any benefit, and try it out.

In my original idea, I was thinking about food stamps (also called SNAP). Here is an explanation of the benefit in an easy to read table, courtesy of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

In case you are wary of doing math, this is roughly $48 a week for a single person for groceries, or just under $7 per day, and this includes everything (including coffee!). 

Legislators should try it, in order to understand the human impact of decisions they make. At the very least, they should probably speak to people who have to use this benefit before voting on related legislation. Just a thought.

Alice Kirby's idea was also a good one. Legislators could try to live off of £73 (roughly US $93) per week --I don't know about unemployment benefits in the US off-hand, so I can't offer the comparable figures. That's a little over $13 a day for lodging, utilities, transportation, etc.

The legislators would only need to do it for a limited period of time, of course. Their constituents don't actually want them to suffer too much. And even if they resume their base salaries of $174,000 a year (for a Member of Congress --it goes up for Senators, Speaker of the House, and such), that small period of time ...say, a month, will have saved the taxpayers enough to fund something like Meals on Wheels from now until the end of eternity.

A slight exaggeration, but it would be interesting to see what could happen if our politicians were to try to see the world through the eyes of the people in their communities.