Empathy Deficit Disorder

This isn't nearly enough to lift them out of poverty. The state's cost of living is one of the five highest of all states.

In any event, doesn't hearing from constituents about what they need go with the job of representing them?

Christie went on to tell his audience "I don't think there's a mother or a father sitting around the kitchen table tonight in America saying, 'You know, honey, if our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God, all of our dreams would be realized.' Is that what parents aspire to?"

A minimum-wage job is no one's version of the American dream. But Christie is wrong to suppose most minimum-wage workers are teenagers. Most are adults who are major breadwinners for their families.

Christie seems to suffer the same ailment that afflicts Alaska's Don Young.

Call it Empathy Deficit Disorder. Some Democrats have it, but the disorder seems especially widespread among Republicans.

These politicians have no idea what people who are hard up in America are going through.

Most Americans aren't suicidal, and most don't work at the minimum wage. But many are deeply anxious about their jobs and panicked about how they're going to pay next month's bills.

Almost two-thirds of working Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

And they're worried sick about whether their kids will ever make it.

They need leaders who understand their plight instead of denying it.

They deserve politicians who want to fix it rather than blame it on those who have to depend on public assistance, or who need a higher minimum wage, in order to get by.

At the very least, they need leaders who empathize with what they're going through, not those with Empathy Deficit Disorder.