14 October 2013

When Congressional extremism becomes homicide

The debt ceiling must be increased by midnight, Thursday, 17 October, or the United States of America begins defaulting on its debts. That will have dire economic consequences, and the longer the default lasts, the more dire the consequences will become.

Rep. Steve Daines won’t be adversely affected by those consequences immediately. He’s rich. If Wall Street panics, his portfolio will shrink, but he’ll have no difficulty paying for shelter, food, and medicine. No gain, perhaps, but also no pain.

But there’ll be pain aplenty for the old and impoverished, for people barely scraping by, living paycheck to paycheck. And if the default and shutdown last long enough, there will be death, especially in high elevation and high latitude states such as Montana where days now grow shorter and colder while the cost of staying warm goes up.

If Social Security payments are delayed, if funds for SNAP (food stamps), for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, for help with heating, run out, the most vulnerable will find they must choose between food, medicine, and a warm place to live. Some will find money for two out of the three. For others, only one of the three will be possible.

1. A warm place to live is the first casualty. At first, the elderly dial the daytime thermostat down to the mid-sixties and put on sweaters. Soon, they lower the thermostat to 60°F and pull on a stocking cap. Next, 50–55°F, a winter coat, a blanket while sitting, and feet and hands growing numb from the cold. The gas or electricity won’t be turned off during winter, but the accumulating amount owed ultimately will frighten people into keeping their homes just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing while they sit in the dim light and cold, wondering whether they’ll be gripped by a fever or develop pneumonia.


2. Medicine is the next casualty. People with chronic conditions — high blood pressure and diabetes, for example — will lower the dosage and skip doses so they can buy food, gambling they can survive for a few weeks if they’re careful and lucky. Flu shots will be skipped.


3. Finally, food becomes scarce. Balanced diets are abandoned for less expensive diets heavy on carbohydrates and fat. Those meeting daily caloric requirements may actually gain weight, usually not a good thing and certainly not a good thing done that way. But others won’t get enough to eat. They’ll always be hungry (always be “food insecure” to use the weasel words currently favored by bureaucrats), increasing malnourished, increasingly vulnerable to cold and microbes.

Eventually, the hardships will take their toll. Some will catch fatal chills. Some will succumb to strokes or heart attacks that proper medication might have prevented. Others, always cold, in pain, in fear, increasingly bereft of hope, will take their own lives. The longer the shutdown and default last, the longer the roll of the dead, all sacrificed by Steve Daines and his cronies on the altar of lower taxes for the rich. That’s not politics as usual. That’s homicide.