The last few months have pretty plainly laid out the priorities and values of our elected leaders. Some are working hard to secure supplies for healthcare workers, ensure safety nets for the millions of Americans who have lost jobs, and build mass coronavirus testing systems. Others, like Kathy’s opponent Rep. Jason Smith, are lamenting “lazy” Americans sitting around at home earning money…🤔
In an interview with a local news publication, Smith said that if people who are laid off from their jobs receive an extra $600 per week, “there’s a lot of people that will make more money sitting at home on unemployment than if they’re at their job.” 👀
You read that correctly: U.S. Rep. Jason Smith thinks that providing temporary relief to workers who lost jobs through no fault of their own incentivizes them not to work, and would result in people making money “sitting at home on unemployment.”
If this makes no sense to you (for starters, if you lost your job due to the impact of the virus, you can’t very well just go back to work…), you’re not alone. But what’s worse than the horrendously flawed logic is the sentiment behind it all: working people are lazy, selfish leeches who would live on government handouts if they could. This is reprehensible, and wrong.
Please, do whatever you can to help defeat this man. Smith is wholly unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress. Kathy has been a clinical social worker for over 30 years, dedicating her life to helping real people through thick and thin. She stands with those who work for a living, who respect the work they do, and fight for dignity and fair wages.
We are building a campaign that can give disrespectful and out of touch elitists like Jason Smith the boot. We need your help: anything you can contribute to Kathy’s campaign goes directly to this fight.
Thank you for your support for the unfairly vilified Americans “sitting at home on unemployment.”
-Team Ellis for Congress
