One on One With Rep. Jan Schakowsky: "We Are Not Helpless!"

Sunday 9 October 2011

by: Alissa Bohling, Truthout | Interview 

Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-Illinois) $227 billion jobs bill was more or less dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House. And while she's proud to say it left its mark on the president's American Jobs Act, that bill is stalled out in Congress. But in a wide-ranging interview last month, Schakowsky insisted that a jobs bill must pass. In a rhetorical landscape overrun with hyperbole, she claims that today's political battles really are "epic," and she remains ambitious on every front, from auditing the military to experiencing firsthand what it means to rely on food stamps. In this conversation with Truthout, Schakowsky envisions a not-so-distant future where food banks set up shop on Capitol Hill, foreclosed homeowners trade their sadness for anger like bankers trading credit default swaps, and the public comes forward "with their hair on fire that ordinary people deserve better."