Let me get all this straight.
A portion of the tax money paid in by those who fall in the middle-income salary range is used to help the poor.
Some of that is a responsibility I can live with. I repeat, some of it.
Now, we’re looking at bailing out the rich, too? We’re actually going to reward corporate greed with $700 billion of our tax money? We’re taking care of crooked executives by offering them “golden parachutes” ? We’re considering all of this, when, despite a number of pleas, our federal government couldn’t find the money to help the city and county governments in Newton County rebuild after the May 10 tornadoes? Or make good on its promise to Miami, Okla., after the 2007 floods?
Those questions, in that order, have plagued me all week as I’ve watched the national news, waiting to see how someone else is planning to spend my next paycheck.
And, I’ve had to ask: “Does my government even still care about me and all my middle-income friends?”
Surely folks, the distinction of being what some refer to as “middle class” is quickly going the way of the dinosaur, meaning that soon we won’t have the strength or the desire to pull ourselves out of the mire because we’re carrying too many others on our backs.
“Middle income” describes a lot of the people I know. You know, people who work for a living, and who put their limited savings into a federally insured account. If they went out and lost a big chunk of their Friday paycheck on a risky venture, they know better than to expect much help.
About half (53 percent) of all Americans place themselves in the middle-income category according to the results of a Pew Research Poll released earlier this year. And, according to the poll, fewer Americans now than at any time in the past half century believe they’re moving forward in life.
Our kids are the ones who have to take out student loans because we make just enough so they don’t qualify for grants. And, we don’t make enough to pay the whole load for college.
We’re the ones who have to decide if a family vacation is out of the question when gas shoots up.
We take our lunches with us to work. We carpool with our neighbors. And, we have to make payments on our hospital bills because of the gap between what insurance covers and what the medical industry demands.
All because we are the responsible middle income.
So, pardon me if I don’t buy into this bailout. I don’t think it makes me any less of a patriot just because I’m in no rush to fork over $700 billion that won’t just come out of my pockets, but those of my children and my grandchildren.
I know, simply by reading letters from readers, that this past week you have felt much the same way I do.
Stuck in the middle and tired of it.
Carol Stark is editor of The Joplin Globe. Address correspondence to her, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, Mo. 64802 or e-mail cstark@joplinglobe.com.
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Carol Stark: Middle class gets second-class treatment
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