What possesses politicians to describe themselves as “poor” or “broke?”  They do this and then are surprised at the backlash they receive.  Hillary Clinton is the most recent example, but I can’t begin to count the number of Congressmen who seem to think this is a good tactic.  I think the base Congressman’s salary is somewhere around $175,000, plus expenses.  Sure, they have to maintain two homes.  The majority of their constituents believe they could maintain multiple households without complaining on that amount of money.  I know I did for more than a decade on my military salary.

Why don’t they come right out and admit they cannot manage their money, because that’s where the problem lies.  If they can’t manage their personal finances, why on earth should we voters elect them to manage our tax dollars?  Publicly complain about the trials of maintaining two households? Don’t re-elect them.  They can’t handle the job.

Another hint to political hopefuls? Unless you can legitimately convey financial difficulties in your life, don’t go there.  Difficulties juggling a multimillion dollar income are not likely to elicit  sympathy from your potential constituents, and the chances of convincing anyone that qualifies you to understand where people struggling in today’s economic challenges are coming from are minimal.  While we’re at it, anyone attending a $10,000 and up per plate fundraising dinner?  Not your average constituent.  Important for funding, yes, but not your average constituent.

This is not a problem endemic to any single political party. It’s not even a political problem, but it dramatically affects politicians when they are stupid or tone deaf in how they address it.  I’m fairly certain we non-politicians are ignorant of some of the financial challenges politicians face.  Unfortunately for the politician, we don’t care about them.  Politicians chose the profession.  If there are challenges that go with it, occupational hazard. Deal with it privately.

Politicians at all levels not understanding what truly broke is cause significant problems.  A prime example of that is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  These problems existed prior to Hurricane Katrina, and the people best equipped to prevent them were local politicians and their appropriate planning agencies.  New Orleans knew they had a significant population without the means to evacuate. You can argue it wasn’t the storm surge but the levee failure that caused problems until the cows come home, but the problems was, New Orleans flooded, and people were trapped. If those people had been evacuated like they were supposed to be, New Orleans flooding post-Katrina wouldn’t have taken the human toll it took. Largely, these were people failed by the system — they are the people who stay behind not because they are brave or stupid and decide to party, but they stay behind because they cannot afford to drive or obtain transportation to take them inland far enough to be safe, and once they get there, they cannot afford a place to stay or a way to get back.  If there are low or no cost ways to accomplish this, they do not know about them or do not trust the system to use them. Compound this with the number of hurricane evacuations that come to naught, and people on the financial edge choose to take their chances. Those chances cost them their lives.  They don’t like it, but that’s the reality they deal with in their lives.

City planners can deal with this.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, video footage of at least one school bus yard filled with flooded school buses was shown.  Establish evacuation bus routes for those buses to drive and pick up households with people, one suitcase/backpack/plastic trash bag per person, and their pets. Each bus would have an established route and an established shelter they would evacuate to and to bring their route back after the all clear was sounded.  If nothing is left to come back to, those shelters will be responsible for helping people with the next phase of disaster recovery. It’s a logistical nightmare to arrange, keep current, and to communicate to the public.  Someone has to agree to pay the bus drivers, and there have to be enough bus drivers to drive the buses.  It’s a significant disaster planning challenge, but city elected officials are responsible for these things.  When they fail to accept that responsibility and get caught, they need to be held accountable.

How does that example relate to politicians not understanding what “dead broke” really means? The “dead broke” Clinton’s found ways to buy multi-million dollar homes, provide an Ivy League education for Chelsea, and were able to fund a very expensive wedding.  If they can do that while they’re “dead broke,” why can’t those people down in New Orleans (or fill in the disaster location du jour) evacuate when they need to?  See the disconnect?  They can do it.  Why can’t those other broke people find a way?

Our politicians don’t need to be financially bereft to be able to serve their constituency.  In fact, they can’t serve well if they are — that’s why they receive the compensation they receive. They do need to understand the difference between spending more than they earn and legitimately being broke.  They need to be sensitive to a range of economic realities.  This is not easy, but caring politician and human being will find a way to educate themselves in both the facts and the tactfulness of the matter.