Sharon Kourous: Conservatives have much in common with Scrooge
In Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge asked the men collecting for the poor, “Are there no prisons? … Are there no workhouses?” The wonderful story of greed and redemption ends happily with Tiny Tim and his deserving family filled with promise, Scrooge’s heart warmed with love.
Our mid-winter stories remind us of our common shared humanity, and those who have much are often moved to share with those who have little.
And yet. And still. There are 11 more months in every year. Are there no prisons? No workhouses?
A recent leading conservative newspaper opinion page asked the Scrooge questions early in December. It suggested Americans who were helped by the American Rescue Plan had quit their jobs to live off the government and to fuel inflation. “Are there no workhouses?” ask conservatives.
Yes. There are. We call them homeless shelters. In Michigan in 2022, 8,638 fellow humans were homeless and over 440,000 children under the age of 18 lived in poverty; 23.3% of children under age 5 lived in poverty. Hunger, insecurity, and malnutrition are primary causes of illness. Children of poverty often perform poorly at school, drop out early, are more likely to turn to crime, to use drugs, to die young — costing society far more than it would to support medical care and family support for all. Michigan will spend more than 2 billion taxpayer dollars on prisons in the coming year, according to the Department of Corrections’ upcoming budget.
Are there no prisons? asked Scrooge. Sure there are, and we pay for them.
The American Rescue Plan helped many Michigan families. “Child tax credits kept 114,000 Michigan children above the poverty line in 2021 and benefited nearly 2 million more,” the Detroit Free Press reported. In 2019, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created a task force to study and recommend policies to alleviate poverty, recommendations supported by the United Way and by religious groups. These include increased access to Michigan’s Earned Income Tax Credit, an expanded housing choice voucher pilot program, more apprenticeship opportunities for incarcerated inmates, and finding ways to help people with behavioral issues. They recommend expanding the Great Start program and other child care support systems, moodyonthemarket.com reported. The Biden administration announced on Dec. 19 its new approach to homelessness, seeking to alleviate problems arising from the imminent cutoff of COVID-19 funding. The Biden plan will work to reduce homelessness by 25% by 2025, working in collaboration with states, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
If you’ve ever been broke, you remember what it’s like to watch every penny. You dreaded the cutback in hours, the pink slip. You know about the daily grind, the exhaustion of keeping smiling in front of the children, of applying for jobs with hundreds of applicants, of the humiliation of putting groceries back at the checkout. You were thankful for any job at all, for the minimum wage and uneven hours, for just barely being able to keep gas in the car. You would never quit this job even if the American Rescue Plan gave you even a small taste of security. You’d replace a worn tire, buy a treat for the kids…. Conservatives want to deny people this small dignity.
Scrooge before his epiphany is emblematic of Dickens’ government’s policy, and his enlightened persona forecasts what present-day societies can do for all citizens. His modern counterpart, Grinch, simply represents greed: He dresses in outlandish costumes, assumes a fake role, steals for the sake of getting more stuff; after his change of heart, he is simply returning what he stole. I doubt the Grinch of Mar-a-Lago will follow that precedent. I doubt the conservatives in Congress will discover their hearts have grown two sizes. U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, has already announced his opposition to the American Rescue Plan. Are there no poorhouses?
We’re fortunate to have a governor keenly focused on these concerns, and a supportive Legislature in Lansing.
Sharon Kourous lives in Monroe and is a member of Stronger Together Huddle, a group that advocates for the common good of all. She can be reached at mcneil102@icloud.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Sharon Kourous: Conservatives have much in common with Scrooge