DCentric

missycaulk

The Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Mariah Craven rightly reproves U.S. Representative-elect Allen West (R-FL), who, while answering a question about tax cuts posed by David Gregroy on Meet the Press, invalidated the very real economic hardship District citizens face. Here is what Congressman West said:

I come from a — an area down in South Florida where unemployment is at 13 percent, foreclosures are absolutely high. We are seeing closed upon closed storefronts. But yet, when you walk around here in Washington, D.C., you don’t see people getting laid off, you don’t see, you know, anyone suffering, you don’t see the foreclosures.

Here is Craven’s response:

So, the Congressman doesn’t see anyone suffering when he walks around D.C. I wonder how much he has walked around the District and where, exactly, he’s walking. Has he walked around Ward 8 where the unemployment rate is 26.5 percent? Has he walked past the new IHOP in Columbia Heights where 500 people – many of whom were overqualified – applied for jobs? When he’s walking, is he talking to any single women who are caring for their families on less than $29,900/year – the median income for this family type, according to our new report 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area?

I get what the Congressman is trying to do – sort of. He wants his constituents back in Florida to think that he’s coming up here and bucking the system. He’s the one in D.C. who understands them. He’s going to show those wealthy, out-of-touch fat cats a thing or two about the real America. He’s representing Main Street inside the Beltway. But what he and many other politicians don’t seem to get is that Washington, D.C. stretches far beyond Capitol Hill. This is a city that struggles with unemployment and foreclosure and a shrinking middle class – just like the rest of the country. To imply that we don’t have these problems is insulting and shows a frightening myopia. These things are happening all around you in D.C. Open your eyes. We’re not different – we’re a microcosm of what’s going on in your home state.