Essential v Non-Essential: An Illustration
Oct. 4th, 2013 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsOnline news comments are filling up with a lot of "if all those people aren't essential, why are we wasting money on them in the first place? Let 'em find real work, hur, hur, hur."
Avoiding an entire post about why the hell people who campaigned on strengthening the economy and middle class and job creation have instead thrown hundreds of thousands of workers out of work, an illustration of essential vs non-essential.
Imagine you are a town mayor. Your town has four schools (elementary, middle, high, community college), a fire department, a police department, code enforcement (the folks who write up citations for grass that's too long, garbage in the front yard, etc.), a museum, a road crew, a law team to deal with federal and local issues, a branch of the state MVA (car licenses and titles), mass transit, a lakeside park, and a general public works office where people can file for state or federal assistance (unemployment benefits, food stamps, job search, etc.)
Because this is an older town, most of the wiring is above ground. Newer buildings have buried their power lines and telephone lines (if they even have landlines installed) but many don't. The town also has a lot of trees. The town is proud of their many, many pretty trees.
Things are chugging along as normal... until the day the tornado hits.
There was plenty of warning so everybody battened hatches and/or got out. Nobody was killed. But when it passes, your town:
1) Is 90 % out of power. The private hospital and the schools are running on their generators, but downed lines and blown transformers mean that most buildings and almost all homes are dark. All traffic lights, including the one leading to/from the interstate highway crossing your town's main road are out.
2) Is blocked in. Massive tree limbs and even more massive trees have come down, some of them big enough to entirely block roads. (True: during a hurricane, a centuries old oak blocked our main road out. The thing was about 6 feet in diameter, and stretched entirely across the road.)
Obviously, your town is in a state of emergency. You need your road crew most obviously, but you're going to need your fire department as people misuse generators and you need your cops to help keep the peace and keep an eye on empty stores.
What you DON'T need:
- Anybody else
The support staff for the cops or fire department, their PR offices and office managers are superfluous today. So are the school's teachers, janitors, office workers, cafeteria people. MVA and mass transit is shut down, code checks are suspended, the park is closed, and public works are a secondary concern.
All of those people and more are non-essential in an emergency.
But does that really mean you don't NEED THEM AT ALL?
Avoiding an entire post about why the hell people who campaigned on strengthening the economy and middle class and job creation have instead thrown hundreds of thousands of workers out of work, an illustration of essential vs non-essential.
Imagine you are a town mayor. Your town has four schools (elementary, middle, high, community college), a fire department, a police department, code enforcement (the folks who write up citations for grass that's too long, garbage in the front yard, etc.), a museum, a road crew, a law team to deal with federal and local issues, a branch of the state MVA (car licenses and titles), mass transit, a lakeside park, and a general public works office where people can file for state or federal assistance (unemployment benefits, food stamps, job search, etc.)
Because this is an older town, most of the wiring is above ground. Newer buildings have buried their power lines and telephone lines (if they even have landlines installed) but many don't. The town also has a lot of trees. The town is proud of their many, many pretty trees.
Things are chugging along as normal... until the day the tornado hits.
There was plenty of warning so everybody battened hatches and/or got out. Nobody was killed. But when it passes, your town:
1) Is 90 % out of power. The private hospital and the schools are running on their generators, but downed lines and blown transformers mean that most buildings and almost all homes are dark. All traffic lights, including the one leading to/from the interstate highway crossing your town's main road are out.
2) Is blocked in. Massive tree limbs and even more massive trees have come down, some of them big enough to entirely block roads. (True: during a hurricane, a centuries old oak blocked our main road out. The thing was about 6 feet in diameter, and stretched entirely across the road.)
Obviously, your town is in a state of emergency. You need your road crew most obviously, but you're going to need your fire department as people misuse generators and you need your cops to help keep the peace and keep an eye on empty stores.
What you DON'T need:
- Anybody else
The support staff for the cops or fire department, their PR offices and office managers are superfluous today. So are the school's teachers, janitors, office workers, cafeteria people. MVA and mass transit is shut down, code checks are suspended, the park is closed, and public works are a secondary concern.
All of those people and more are non-essential in an emergency.
But does that really mean you don't NEED THEM AT ALL?
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 04:26 pm (UTC)In the last few years, the government changed terminology and moved away from using the word "essential" to "excepted". Yea right, Huh?? The explanation was that people who are "excepted" during a government shut down have to report to work in order to perform basic life and property preserving tasks. As in "all employees shall remain home EXCEPT ..."
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 05:30 pm (UTC)Out of curiousity, what is your job?
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 06:43 pm (UTC)Another letter said that the writer's son throws tantrums, and she doesn't give in because it would teach him that tantrums are the way to get what you want. He's three. She doesn't know what the House Republicans' excuse is.
I do like your tornado analogy.
The number 800,000 keeps appearing as the number of government employees on furlough. I have seen no number for the number of contract employees, including you and K.....
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 08:08 pm (UTC)My prayers & good thoughts go out to many of our friends who are being defamed on top of getting the shaft. And my undying contempt goes out to the Tea Party & their wholly-owned subsidiaries in Congress