From: ur-valhalla!aol.com!Marilyn159
Subject: BUDGET DENIAL
Message-ID: <951113202616_105674141@mail06.mail.aol.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:26:17 -0500
In a message dated 95-11-13 18:10:37 EST, you write:

 > if this keeps up, you are not going to have a CHOICE about what to
 > cut. a depression will make those tough decisions for you that you
 > couldn't face responsibly.

Well, that may effect you, but I don't know if a depression will have
that much effect on the millions of kids growing up in poverty...or
the millions of capable, highly skilled, vital, middle-aged workers
being layed off by downsizing companies who are making record profits-
-workers who will never replace their middleclass incomes by finding
new jobs. ...or for the millions of blue-collar workers who are losing
their jobs because their companies are closing and sending their work
via NAFTA to countries where workers work for $.35 cents an hour. Gee,
if we were all willing to work for $.75 cents an hour, maybe we could
keep our jobs. Are we being hard-headed, spoilted,  to expect more?

For these millions, the depression has already arrived, while those
bogeymen Republicans line their pockets with millions from lobbyists
from those  big corporations that are making record profits,  who are
pouring that money into secret black military projects the public
knows nothing about and more obvious boondoggles that are fleecing
America.

The bogeyman Republicans don't even understand what the voters want.
They live in a world full of perks and privilleges. They no longer
have any contact with their constituencies. Voters want less
government--i.e., less politicians who line their pockets with PAC
money and perks. Voters want real jobs that pay real wages they can
live on in America in the 90s. The tax they pay is their hard-earned
money and they have a right to expect to get something back for it
Insead it seems to have become a giant contribution to an out-of-
control election process.

This big debt we owe is built up of many things like the S&L debacle
which lined the bankers' and the politicos' pockets and left the
public to pick up the bill. Maybe the people who incurred the debt
should pay it. But no, they get new multi-million dollar CEO jobs so
they can fleece the public yet again from the private sector. They're
"in the loop." The American public is no longer in the loop. Give us
five years and we'll be living in tin-roofed shantytowns like
Brazilian peasants.

Why do we have so much crime in America? Because "someone" is flooding
our inner cities and our suburbs with drugs to finance their schemes.
Because no hard-working couple can afford to live a modest lower
middleclass life unless both people work and let the kids cope as they
can. Thirty short years ago, you could buy a house in America for
$10,000. Now you can barely get a car for that amount of money. How
many politicans drive $12,000 cars? At that price, you don't even get
stereo or air-conditioning.

Clinton started out his election campaign with a promise to reform
American health care. The overwhelming combined power of the medical,
insurance,  and pharmaceutical industries have made that reform an
impossibility. Now the Republicans want to take away what little
health care we can get. This is a disaster. With more and more
Americans being layed off and losing their jobs and benefits, any cut
in medical care is a disaster. Do the young people who are so anxious
to cut Social Security realize that they will one day soon be burdened
with the care and support of their aging parents or will they be ready
to just walk away and let their parents die in the streets? Do the
people who want to cut taxes and services realize that essential
services will have to come from somewhere--most likely property taxes,
which will force people out of their homes?

No, people with multi-million dollar salaries--earning 20 times more
than their employees ( te highest salaries and biggest
employer/employee gap in the world or in history)--don't have to worry
about nursing home care for Gramma, or medical care for a sick child
or family member. The people we elect to our government get excellent
benefits which their constitutents lack. Just as a build up of ice at
the Poles makes the Earth unstable, a build up of income in a small
powerful group destablizes society. A humane society has jobs for its
people, cares for its children, its ill and its elderly and offers the
real opportunity to make a decent life. Are we careening away from the
idea of a humane society? Has the notion of being humane become an
outworn notion, fit only for contemptible "liberals.". Should we
revere and emulate a killer elite who take all they can get and
condemn the rest of us as losers and failures who can't even get a
multi-million dollar job, buy a Mercedes Benz,  organize a drug cartel
or rob a bank from the inside? How long can a nation of lawyers,
bankers,  and doctors survive if there are no working citizens who can
afford their pricey services?

Frankly, when I put my anxiety aside, I have to laugh when I see all
those bank ads pushing retirement savings and plans . I'd like to know
how many Americans are living on their retirement savings now--before
they're 65 because the companies that employed them have downsized and
they lost their jobs when they were 45 or 55? I have to laugh when I
think about all the young Turks who are riding high now and imagine
that they'll still have their power jobs after the age of  45. And
won't things be better if we cut health care, cut education so kids
can't get the skills they need to survive and functiion in a high tech
society, if we force welfare mothers to work so that single parent
children won't even have the presence and care of one parent, let
alone two...if we  deny healthcare to the ill and elderly. All this
stuff is just seeding the whirlwind. Which we will reap. Ask around.
In a nation where those earning over $200,000 a year considerthemselve
merely middle-class, many if not most people are living on the brink
of disaster... many people think there is a depression in this country
now. They are not worried about their grandchildren at the moment.
They're worried about themselves, about getting through next week or
next month. Are we really a nation in denial or a nation teetering on
the brink of real need?

---SnetMgr 0.60 [r0001]
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