Thread by @bethanylilly

A short thread about the idea of choice and the poisonous ways it's used in policy work.

There is a deep and abiding assumption choice is an absolute good. Politicians rarely say they're going to take away choice. I always think of Obama's promise that people could choose to keep their health care plan after the ACA was passed.

Except, of course, when it comes to low income people. There's no choice about working and receiving SNAP benefits--if you need help paying for food, you've got to try and work.

If you have lost your job and you're applying for unemployment, you don't have a choice but to abide by whatever standards your state's system requires.

I've spent the last few months talking to Hill staff about the SSI program and the arcane and cruel rules that govern it and I'm sure some have thought why would anyone put themselves through these rules? And that's because people don't have any other choice.

It is absolutely no choice when the other option is not paying rent. Or not having health care.

You would be surprised how many policy ideas are just about allowing people to choose between two kinds of broken, harmful systems because "they can choose!"

I'm not here for that kind of playing. Especially not when it will, by definition, hurt people of color and with disabilities the most because it won't be a real choice.

We shouldn't be offering people a choice. We should be offering people a functioning, responsive support system that gives them what they need. And we all ask for that, that's what we'll have.