HUFFINGTON
10.07.12
DON FARRALL/GETTY IMAGES
ANGER MANAGEMENT
long-term unemployed North
Carolinians — many of whom had
already depleted their savings
trying to keep their lights on and
their children warm with a fraction of their former income.
Treadway, then 35, was one
of them. She’d lost her job doing
medical transcription work early
in 2010, and she and her husband
had two young kids to feed. She
wrote LaRoque and other top Republicans explaining her troubles.
“I am begging you on behalf of
our family, before we lose absolutely everything, to please work
out a compromise and pass the
extension of these benefits to give
us more time to try to help ourselves,” she said in her email.
Most politicians might have
responded to such a plea with a
boilerplate letter thanking Treadway for her views on the matter
— if they bothered to respond at
all. But LaRoque, then 47, wanted
to help. He suggested that Treadway apply for work at a nearby
chicken processing plant. Having already applied there and
been told no jobs were available,
Treadway called LaRoque dishonest. He quit being nice.
“Most anyone can find a job if
they can pass a drug test and are
physically able to work,” he replied. “I have tried to find people
to do yard work but it seems most
are too good for manual labor.
Based on the tone of your email
it is not difficult to see why you
can’t find a job.”
LaRoque told Treadway that
if she was really willing to work,
he’d pay her $8 an hour to clean
his yard. She drove from her home
in Goldsboro, 26 miles away, the
next morning, ready to get dirty,
she told The Huffington Post at
the time. (Though both Treadway
and LaRoque spoke with HuffPost
in the past, neither agreed to be
interviewed for this article.)
The incident between Treadway
and LaRoque is more than just a
local squabble. Republicans at the
state and federal levels broadly
share his view on the plight of the