Sen. Mark Kirk is in a scary situation.
Well, not necessarily Kirk himself. What’s scary to me are some of the implications of news surrounding the U.S senator from Illinois.
Kirk suffered a serious stroke in 2012. Illinois residents have watched – and rooted for – his gallant struggle to regain his health. During this recovery period, the senator has needed assistance with getting around and doing day-to-day chores. And this has made him a news item lately.
As the Tribune recently reported Kirk has used funds to pay a live-in caregiver. Federal law, the Tribune reported, forbids using campaign money for expenses that would occur regardless of whether the person were running for or holding office.
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I am not competent or knowledgeable enough to judge the rightness or wrongness of the allegations, or of how Kirk spent campaign funds.
That’s not what I find scary.
What frightens me is how many other stroke victims are out there struggling with how to afford the care they need?
Each year, 795,000 Americans suffer a stroke, according to statistics from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention on the Internet Stroke Center website. Strokes are the leading cause of long-term disability in this country.
As a senator, Kirk’s salary, excluding benefits, is $174,000 a year. Yet, he apparently still had to dip into his campaign funds to pay for the caregiver he needs.
Where does this leave people not so affluent? The median net wage for an individual worker in the U.S, was $28,031 in 2013, according to the Social Security Administration. The median annual household income in 2013 was $52,250, that high largely because many households rely on two people working.
This is well below what a senator makes. How do victims of strokes and other illnesses manage?
Well, there’s Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, programs that assist low- and middle-income Americans deal with economic catastrophes.
Since the inception of such federal programs, Republicans have consistently attempted to destroy, dilute or voucherize all such programs.
I wonder: Does Sen. Kirk, a Republican, view these programs the same way now that he needs help himself?
Might Kirk’s predicament modify other GOP lawmakers’ hostility to government help?
I hope so.
But, I doubt it.
And that is scary.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.