On Sunday, Rep. Eric Swalwell, desperately trying to make himself relevant in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, posted a video of himself changing his child’s dirty diaper, all so he could use a vulgar word to grab everyone’s attention. Swalwell wrote, “Will you donate $1 now to get me to the debate stage? I’m ready to clean s#*% up!”
It’s hard to know whether Swalwell posted the video or whether the baby posted the video, since as we all know, Swalwell may shapeshift into someone else at a moment’s notice:
Swalwell is barely making a dent in polls of Democratic presidential candidates; a poll conducted by The Hill/HarrisX found he did not even register on the scale; a Harvard/Harris poll found the same, as did a Morning Consult poll.
Swalwell kicked off his presidential campaign in mid-April, asserting, “”This is not a campaign that will be beholden to special interests. We will accept no corporate PAC money and we’re not going to be driven by the polls.”
“Not driven by the polls” is definitely a good thing for him.
Since Swalwell is so determined to “to clean s#*% up!”, in the interests of looking out for his capacity to make a living, here are a few notes:
The Penny Hoarder notes:
A pooper-scooper can make $40 to $45 per hour if he works with an average of four clients per hour, says Matthew Osborn, former professional pooper-scooper and author of The Professional Pooper-Scooper … If you want to ease into this line of work to see how it suits you, you can test it out without much risk. You just need a vehicle to get you to your clients’ homes, a pooper-scooper tool and some plastic poop bags. When you get your first client, it’s typical to charge $45 per month for a once-a-week visit, according to Tim Stone of the Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists … Go to the U.S. Small Business Administration to determine which licenses and permits you might need to start this kind of business. Once you start billing more than a few people per month, think about getting yourself an automated system.
Or conversely, TheBalanceSmallBusiness notes some of the financial benefits of starting a diaper service:
Your business can be entirely home-based. Not needing a storefront significantly lowers your overhead. You also can deduct expenses for your home office when filing your taxes. You also may be eligible for tax incentives for having a green business. It’s an environmentally sound business. The Real Diaper Association estimates that more than 27 billion disposable diapers are used every year in the United States and that 92 percent of those end up in landfills. Your target markets and ways to reach them are easy to identify.
Swalwell might well consider cleaning “s#*% up” for financial reasons alone; Fox News reported:
Rep. Eric Swalwell has accumulated a massive credit card debt, failed to pay off his student loans and cashed out his pension despite earning $174,000 a year since 2013 … Since 2013, when he was first elected into Congress, Swalwell started earning a hefty salary of $174,000 a year. Prior to that, as a prosecutor in an Alameda County and town council member in Dublin, Calif., he earned around $118,000, according to the last full year of work … Despite the significant increase in pay, Swalwell currently owes the student debt worth between $50,001 and $100,000 – the same level of debt as eight years ago. Meanwhile, his Alameda County pension fund that was worth between $15,001 and $50,000 was cashed out back in 2013.