What’s the point of poor people?

The United States celebrated the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which officially granted women the right to vote,  on Aug. 26.

Interestingly, though, women could vote in Oklahoma more than a year prior. A popular vote passed the measure in the state on Nov. 5, 1918, despite two previous failures in the state legislature.

This November, too, will be a historic one both for women and Oklahoma when the state elects its first female governor. In addition, Republican gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Fifth District Congresswoman Mary Fallin already holds the honor of having been the first female lieutenant governor in the state.

With so many cracks in the glass ceiling, it is disappointing she doesn't embody similar ideas of equality.

Last Friday, while touting her support of tax breaks for the wealthy to the Tulsa Republican Club, Fallin explained, "I don't know about you, but I've never been offered a job by a poor person."

The same day, during his Worst Person in the World segment, MSNBC's "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann said of Fallin's comment: "She did not add, ‘So screw ‘em.' It was merely implied."

In response to this statement, conservative blogger Brad Wilmouth of NewsBuster.org, a side project of the Media Research Center, whose goal is "documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias," claimed Olbermann was either ignorant or had distorted Fallin's "adage."

"In reality," Wilmouth argued, "she was making the case that the wealthy are important to the economy because they are the wage payers for many people."

To assume, however, that Olbermann missed Fallin's point is to assume incorrectly and misses Olbermann's point entirely.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 15.7 percent of people in Oklahoma lived below the poverty line in 2008, well above the national average of 13.2 percent for that year — this after being named the 10th poorest state in 2007.  The median household income for the same year was $42,836 in the state, nearly $10,000 less than that of the national.

On top of this, more than 65 percent of Oklahomans voted Republican in 2008, making it the most conservative state in the country.  

And, winning more than 61 percent of the popular vote in her district in 2006, Mary Fallin must surely owe some thanks for her current employment to low-income voters.

Taking into account Oklahoma's poorer rural and agrarian areas surrounding the Fifth District, the potential for poor voters for Fallin increases significantly.

Fallin's support of trickle-down economics is an obvious point, not a missed one.  Her implications, too, are just as obvious.  

Either way, the implications for the poor are the same: They're screwed.

Shawn Canny is a guest columnist and a bartender in Stillwater.