Taxes, the national debt, unemployment insurance, all difficult issues about which many people have strong feelings, including me. I would love to see tax cuts for the wealthy expire, even if that means my taxes go up. We'd get by but we are retired and don't have house payments, children to feed or many of the other expenses that way on the middle and underclass that would be affected by an increase in tax cuts. I am not sure that it is worth the suffering that many will endure to let all tax the Bush tax cuts expire.
Unemployment benefits, for some reason these have become controversial. I can remember when our family was hit by unemployment, the struggle to find a job. There may be some who will stubbornly try to continue in their previous field but in our case a whole new career was entered into with much lower pay; any job that had the prospect of keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads was acceptable. Do we want to see families on the street, lined up in front of food pantries day after day?
The Republican Party in the Senate has veto power over any initiatives of the Democrats in Congress or the President may have to aid the majority. Voters were short sighted in giving them this power and now we must all suffer the consequences, tax cuts for the super rich in exchange for a sop to the middle class and unemployed.
The National debt, now that is a biggie, a problem we have been putting off and are in danger of putting onto our children, grand-children and great-grand-children. I see no way out of this with out raising taxes on everyone. The wealthy need to take the biggest hit, they who have gained the most from the excesses of the previous decades need to pay the biggest price. I, for one, would rather take a reduced standard of living than to see my children struggle to survive.
The public has been sold an empty bill of goods by Fox Television and the Republican Party. They say "let the rich keep their money and they will use it to create jobs; they haven't and they won't. They say we are "over taxed", we aren't we have some of the lowest tax rates in the world and in our own history.
It is time for the voting public to think less about their own selfish interests and more about the future of their nation and their children. The truth is that it was a Democrat, Clinton, who balanced the budget and made inroads on the national debt. It was a Republican, Bush 2, who insisted on irresponsible tax cuts and headed us in the direction of economic disaster.
