FROM THE EDITOR: ALICE's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Today, we stand on the precipice of a new relationship between government and governed. Republicans and Democrats will win, as election dollars flow. ALICE - and our community - will suffer.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
For Alexander, there is no happy ending to his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day — a cavity, lima beans for dinner, no dessert at lunch, lost friends at school, and gum in his hair.
Things are so bad, he threatens his mother with moving to Australia. His mother’s comforting words? “[S]ome days are like that. Even in Australia.”
Yes — some days are like that. But there’s also an unspoken message of hope in his mother’s words that tomorrow will be a better day.
That’s true in Alexander’s made-up world. But ALICE* woke up this morning to a world that holds less promise for things getting better than it did the day before.
No Wonderland
In ALICE’s world, mom and/or dad work, but their salaries combined aren’t enough to cover the minimum needed to pay for basic living expenses.
In fact, the family is routinely hundreds of dollars short every month. This leaves them with challenging decisions. Food or medicines? Electric bill or water bill? Money for lunch or money for the bus to work? Money for clothes or money for the internet? Car payment or phone bill payment? Which bills can we float, which ones must be paid? Second jobs, or getting involved in local government and kids’ after-school events?
The $40 to pay for ALICE’s school field trip can’t be found in petty savings, because the family has no petty savings. So the family sacrifices for a few months — on top of the normal juggling and sacrifices they make — to scrape together the money to go. It’s as close to a “vacation” as ALICE will have this year.
And should the bill that flew through the U.S. Senate at a breakneck speed find its way through the House by Friday — or even in the days after that — ALICE’s life stands to get much harder.
ALICE’s world is no Wonderland. She and her family represent almost half the families in Fredericksburg, more than 35% of families in Spotsylvania, and 32% of families in Stafford.
On the line for ALICE this July 4 weekend? Medicaid for her and her family. The Moss Free Clinic the family sometimes used before Medicaid expansion has been shuttered. And with it, the lone option the family had for dental care. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which has buffered the family to some degree from rising food costs and allowed them to double the purchasing power of their dollars at local farmers’ markets and the Food Co-op, is facing steep cuts.
Worse, the aid that flowed to food banks is also being stemmed, meaning there will be less there for ALICE and her family to receive. Education cuts to the programs that support ALICE’s brother, who is dealing with autism, as well as the cuts to feeding programs that ensured children like ALICE had at least two sound meals a day during the school year. And more …
ALICE’s family is well-known, and not known at all in our community.
We see the destitute, and we understand the challenges they face living in extreme poverty.
But ALICE outnumbers the destitute by a wide margin. For every household in poverty, more than two are households like ALICE’s.
She sits next to your children at school. ALICE’s mom can be an aide in your public school, or even the person teaching your children. ALICE’s dad can be the firefighter who answers the call in the middle of the night to your home.
ALICE’s family can outwardly appear “middle class.”
ALICE, in all likelihood, lives in your neighborhood. Struggling quietly day-in and day-out to stay afloat.
ALICE, and the support that flows to her and similar families, isn’t the problem.
ALICE is our future.
And if the federal government fails to do its part to strengthen families, it is incumbent upon us all to pick up that loss of support.
People like ALICE are not the problem.
Poor policy is.
Quotes from Community Leaders About the Impact of the Bill Before Congress
Dan Maher — President and CEO, Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank
From what those of us in the charitable food assistance space had been hearing as the budget reconciliation bill was under consideration in the Senate, we anticipated severe impacts on food and medical access for those we serve.
While the depth of cuts to SNAP, the nation's backbone food assistance program, are marginally less severe than in the House version of the budget reconciliation bill, they would still be deeply impactful and harmful to the health and well-being of large numbers of SNAP beneficiaries at a time when Medicaid, their chief health support, is also being cut deeply. If those dual spending cuts are affirmed and accepted by the House, it will not be a path forward for our nation, but a setback to those who are most vulnerable and to the organizations that serve them.
Clint Mitchell — Superintendent, Spotsylvania County Public Schools
Some of our most vulnerable students are going to be put into a place where they’re going to lose benefits that are essential for their survival. As the number of students who qualify for benefits declines, this also potentially hurts the district’s funding for Title I and other government funds which are tied to the numbers of students who qualify for SNAP, Medicaid, etc. This affects everyone. Just one example, Title I funds help us keep class sizes down. This could force us to grow class sizes.
Teri McNally — Chief Executive Officer, The Community Foundation
We’re already starting from behind with Moss Free Clinic and United Way closing. I think about how it will affect Mary Washington Hospital. How does that change how our community centers work together to address the needs? We will be going out into our community, just as we did during COVID, and asking people to think about ways they can give. We will also probably be restarting the Community Relief Fund to address immediate community needs.
*To learn more about ALICE and the challenges before them — and us — see “The State of Alice in Virginia” report. To learn more about ALICE at the local level, visit the United Way’s locality-level reports.
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Out of curiosity, who writes the lead-in?
Because if that was all you had to go by, you would presume these horrible actions are the fault of both those who identify as Republicans and those who identify as Democrats.
While a reading of the actual article, of the effects on the community and the quotes from those leading efforts which will be most effected - leave nothing to support such a conclusion.
Yes, the results are horrible, cruel, devastating. No doubt.
But I would love to know what the writer of the lead in thinks Democrats could do differently to change it.
Bend the knee in obedience and then beg for mercy, ala UVA, CBS, and various law forms, boards, and companies?
Vote differently? Every Democrat in both the House and Senate voted against it. Every one.
A couple of Republicans joined them, for now. But even they, especially in the House, were voting no because they didn't feel the bill was draconian enough, not that it was too devastating.
Democrats have fought in the courts, in the media, in protests - both large and small.
To me, they've done everything they can do, short of violence. What else would you see them do?
Whereas the other party, as a monolithic group which brooks little dissent, has not only crossed that line of violence, and then pardoned and rewarded those who did violence on their behalf. And they continue to do so in new and novel ways.
I hope Democrats, or anyone who refuses to bow to this tyrannical personality cult never feels the need to go to such an extreme. Though I will note it has happened in the past. That emblem got on Virginia's flag for a reason.
Still, while these good folk are using any legal and non-violent means they can think of to resist, certain members of the media, ahem, seem to take no stand other than to say it's horrible, and they all do it.
That ain't right. There's a difference, even if you can't/won't see it.
Now if you're talking the Chuck Schumers who angrily pushes his glasses down his nose while reading a bedtime story of how upset he is about the gutting of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and then mainly using it as a fund raising meme, can't say you're wrong.
But even for that - there are others taking stronger stands. And, as milquetoast as he, and the Warners and Kaines are - they are still easily discernible from those who are creating this crisis.
They are not the same as a Murkowski who gives a performative art lesson before caving in as she always does.
I guess I get it.
I have trouble with color blindness as I age into the abyss. In that I have a harder time picking out red from green than other folks. And, I also notice trouble with higher pitched sounds. Or lower amplitude ones.
I know Led Zeppelin at the end of the song is saying she's "barring the stairway to Heaven", but without my hearing aids, I know longer hear it.
Still, doesn't mean the words or colors aren't there. Just that I've lost the capability of seeing or hearing them.
I'm just glad to know that limited capacity has been limited to my physical senses, and not to my ability to reason. Wish I could say the same for others. Especially those with so much influence.