Florida Tea Party Representative Ted Yoho thinks that Federal employees furloughed by the government shutdown shouldn’t receive retroactive pay for the time that they have been dismissed.
Interviewed during a town hall meeting, the representative was tossed a softball by a caller, “The people that had to work should be paid. But the people that are home watching Netflix and whatever, I’m not sure that we should be sending them checks.”
To which Yoho was able to respond with a tea-party homerun of “… If they’re not working, they shouldn’t get paid,” and neglect that the GOP is largely to blame for displacing the federal employees that have been furloughed.
The town hall was structured to continue the insularity of the far-right. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “Callers were asked if the shutdown should continue to prevent Obamacare from being funded. Seventy-one percent said yes.”
Yoho seems prepared to respond to perceived criticism, in the same way that would keep him ignoring any sort of contrary reasoning, by stating that he is aware that the media likes to make fun of him. “It’s just an uphill battle we have to fight. Good thing a lot of us are Christians.”
To be clear, nothing in this article is making fun of Yoho. I’m simply asking if there may be a better way to govern. One that doesn’t necessarily rely on saying what your audience wants to hear and ignoring anything else that exists – like that your party created the situation in which the people you’re marginalizing find themselves and you’re reducing them into a quip about “don’t work, don’t pay.”
Joshua is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. You can follow him on Twitter @Joshual33.