Miami’s Carlos Gimenez epitomizes the greed that characterizes congressional Republicans

As members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez, and Maria Elvira Salazar care greatly about one thing — themselves. As for the constituents who elected them to represent them in Washington, unless you contributed big wads of money during their campaigns, don’t expect much help from the three Cuban Americans from South Florida.

Allow me to focus on the recently elected Gimenez, a former mayor of Miami-Dade County, to explain the greed they adhere to. But the truth is that not one of the three is worth the paper I’m writing these words on.

Allow me to create a picture of a family of four — mom, dad, and two children. Lucky parents, they’re both working. In 2019, the father earned the equivalent of $8 an hour. Mom took home $7.50 an hour, which came out to $32,240 between them. In 2020, though, as restaurant workers they spent weeks without work because of the Covid-19 pandemic. And that $32K I mentioned did not take into account the money deducted for taxes. 

Let’s look at their expenses. Quickly, mom, dad and children live in a comfortable, but not fancy or expensive, 2 bedroom apartment in Miami. Their rent is $1,500 a month and the landlord keeps threatening to raise the rent. Their light bill averages about $100 a month. They own two cell phones ($70 a month). They have one car which they pay $200 a month for. Let’s estimate about $500 a month for food and add $130 more for miscellaneous expenses. Notice I have not included one penny for any kind of insurance — car or health, both required. 

Their expenses, as I’ve presented them, come out to $30,000 a year. If mom and dad had worked every week of the entire 2020, they would have brought home a little more than $32,000… but the virus made sure that was not the case. 

Now let us turn to our three Cuban-American members of Congress. Last week they voted against, (let me repeat) AGAINST, a stimulus bill proposed by President Joe Biden and passed, in spite of them, by the House of Representatives. (It still must clear the Senate.) The three get paid no less than $174,000 each by the federal government for their jobs as members of the House of Representatives. And all three represent areas of Miami-Dade County categorized as some of the poorest in the United States. The pandemic, obviously, has not helped to improve the situation.

The $1.9 trillion stimulus bill would send $1,400 checks to struggling families and individuals, expand child tax credits to lower-income families, extend federal unemployment benefits through August and fund COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

One last thing about our three representatives. All three also voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. As reported by C/Net, “The minimum wage rate has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009. By boosting the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, 32 million U.S. workers, or 21% of the workforce, would see their hourly wage lifted, according to the Economic Policy Institute.”

In fact, the actions of our three Cuban American friends in Congress make sad sense. Trumpism, which all three members bow to as Republicans, wants to make America great again by making it greedier. And that greed starts with the many business owners who refuse to help pull Americans out of poverty in spite of making six-figure, seven-figure, and even higher salaries on the back of those same poor who are making them rich. And Mario, Carlos and Maria Elvira want to make sure they please — not their constituents — but the rich folk who keep them on the federal government’s tit.

But back to Carlos Gimenez. The former mayor receives a retirement check from the City of Miami, where he was fire chief and city manager, and another retirement check from the county, both of which add up to $221,000. Add the $174,000 he now gets paid as a member of Congress, and Gimenez takes home no less than $395,000 paid for by us, the taxpayers. And that’s not including the perks and preferential health insurance he receives.

And yet, Gimenez refuses to grant a member of his community who has run into hard times because of a killer pandemic, $1,400 and a raise that would bolster his or her situation. He explained it this way: “I could not vote for a package filled with excessive non-COVID-19 items…” Excessive? 

Mr. Gimenez, if you want to talk about excessive, I would start with the almost $400,000 you receive from the taxes paid by so many who could benefit from the $1,400 infusion and hike in pay to $15, a raise not received in more than a decade.

Like I said at the beginning, not one of the three is worth the paper. But Gimenez… he’s the perfect example of the greed that characterizes Republicans in Congress.