Going For Broke
The state of my finances is embarrassing. For someone who just turned 56 I can claim no savings or investments, tens of thousands of dollars in debt (so much that I really can't bear to let you know how many tens), and...I have income in the area of $20,000/yr.
Oh, there was a day when things were different - not that I ever saved - and I pulled in $100,000/yr and appeared to have no debt. That is "appeared" to me. When my income dropped precipitously, I found that I had never made a profit in business. I seemed somewhat awash in cash for someone on the low end of the middle class, but don't you know, I was spending more money than was coming in. No one checked the books!
An inheritance might bail me out, but that doesn't have much appeal for obvious reasons. Barring that, I will die in the hole, so to speak.
Along with most Americans and every level of the United States government.
This week the Senate took a budget, already beyond America's means so that George Bush can continue killing, tapping, cheating, lying, committing every venal sin with the exception of hiring hookers for himself, needing weapons of mass destruction to get it up, don't you know?...
they decided to enlarge the president's sinful budget, not simply by increasing the nation's debt, but making it lawful to increase the nation's debt - lest you think these guys are pulling something.
You see, this is an election year, and Republicans want you to know that as long as they are in power, programs you support will indeed be funded - until after the elections. They are so incredibly brilliant that they will fund programs you want without any taxes.
They're working it the same way I do. No income. More spending. And here's the catch - neither of us soon will be unable to fund anything. New tires for my car, already ten years old - the car that is - will be unavailable to me. No credit left. Will my parents be able to afford them for me from their Social Security? I can't help but mention, because no one Republican or otherwise ever does, that, if I get new tires, it is Franklin Roosevelt's vision and feeling for Americans that I must thank. And he was rich!
I'm off point. I'm sorry. Let's just go as far back a bit to Bill Clinton's balancing of the budget. That seems now like a feat beyond believability. Or worth anyone's time and interest. I gotta say, I think the Clintons are our lone best hope now, but that blow job of his really cost us.
And so, if you push Republicans to kill taxes and increase spending, there won't be any money for tires soon.
As someone who is ill and financially defeated, I'm more and more afraid to live in the United States now. Of course, you and America don't owe me much - and I need a lot - but the things you count on - Medicare, Social Security, clean air, education for any but the wealthy, and a job - won't be around for you either.
When you vote in November - and you must, really - you will be asked to send mostly old, white, rich men who already make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year fleecing you, as they tell you they are making your life easier by eliminating taxes, unless you are already broke...you'll be asked to send these despicable animals back to what is for them the Promised Land. You'll be asking them to lie some more. And some more.
This country was founded by old, white, rich men. There are 300,000,000 Americans now, diverse and deserving the democracy for which they pray each night. And whether the hyphenate that helps describe your ethnicity is African, Latin, Italian, Irish, Jewish, keep going, there's one for you, you who have sent those old, rich, white men to Washington for nearly two-and-one-half centuries will do it again.
I beg you on my knees, please don't do it again. They will break you in every way a person can be broken. I'll be dead, but you will be here. And the son you loved from the moment he opened his eyes will probably lie dead in sand and burning heat. You will be here with old, rich, white men and their twin daughters in white gowns.
posted by lvuback1 @ 11:38 PM
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