I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement ...

By Pepper of the Daily Pepper

I don't want to live in my parents' basement.

It's a nice basement, and it's where they keep the liquor and the stereo. But I still have no plans to live there. And my parents, as cool as they are, certainly don't want me down there.

Due to the dip in consumer confidence, an economic outlook growing bleaker by the day, rising health-care costs, and a government completely unwilling to roll back tax cuts, I have a funny feeling that the world is conspiring to put me in the basement. Most conservatives probably fantasize about all children winding up in their parents' basements maxing out their credit cards. Charge it, baby!

Why? A few notes from an article I read in the San Francisco Chronicle:

To get by, people work more than one job or amass credit card debt, couples work day and night shifts to avoid having to pay for child care, and adult children move back in with their parents, according to interviews with policy experts and workers.

In the Bay Area ... a single adult needs to make $27,901 a year or $13.41 an hour to cover those expenses. A single parent with two children needs $62,969 a year or $30.27 an hour. And a single wage earner in a family where the other parent stays home -- and provides child care -- would have to make $55,740 or $26.80 an hour.

I'm actually okay. I have a job, no kids, and no car. Even savings, which makes me one of the few people I know who can say that. But I realize that I am one bad business cycle or one accident or one illness away from trouble. In fact, I got to thinking about it after Shakespeare's Sister's rough week. (Have you sent her some love yet? You should.)

I can hear someone say, "I have an easy solution for you. Why don't you move out of the Bay Area?" Maybe some people don't want to leave their families. Maybe some people realize that in other parts of the nation they can't find jobs that suit their skills.

Plus, no matter where you are, people will still think it's somehow "your fault" that you're having money trouble. It may be true in some cases, but certainly not all of them. Yet this myth has become convenient for the new-model Republicans currently running the nation.

Lance Mannion was talking about Rich Lowry's knee-jerk reaction to Katrina victims, and Lance addresses the overall perception of poverty in the United States:

The poor are poor because of their own bad character, goes the chorus, of course, but the verse is like this: Liberal government programs encourage, foster, and make virtues out of the vices that keep the poor poor. You know, because not letting their children starve, not leaving them to attend rotten schools, not letting the old and young die of treatable diseases, not forcing them to live in squalid housing, all that just makes them lazy and dependent and (shhhh) shiftless.

The point is that even if you are an angel, you still might end up broke. Our conservative elected officials preach that they don't want anyone dependent on the government. Heaven forbid we be "shiftless."

However, their policies force those who must work for a living - like myself - to be dependent on someone, whether it be the company they work for or their parents. I understand that business is what makes the world go round, but there is no independence without economic independence. If the average American doesn't have the resources to stand on their own two feet, they are beholden to the whims of their employers. They have no real rights. They can't say anything for fear of losing their jobs. And that's where the desperation kicks in.

Conservatives like Rich Lowry gripe about people robbing and stealing and generally not being able to control themselves. Well, they've seen what it gets you to be good - not much more security than being bad. You get the basement if you're lucky.