Presidential Candidates Spent Nearly $200 Million on TV Ads

The Backbone of America

Ah… the Middle Class…the backbone of America… the term conjures

up a feeling of well-being. Not rich and not poor. We are the

silent masses that go to work, pay our taxes and cut our grass.

We still smile at each other, yet we see the nervous look in our neighbors' eyes. I hear a sound. Do you hear that sound???

Something creaking?? It's getting louder every day. It is the

sound of that very backbone breaking. Breaking under the strain of carrying this country. We are embroiled in the economic crisis of our time.

I always believed that I was part of the "middle class." Likely most everyone I know considers themselves "middle class." Actually, 90 percent or more of Americans consider themselves to be "middle class" or "upper-middle class" or "working class." An April 2007 poll by CBS News found that of 994 adults surveyed only 2 percent said they were "upper class," and 7 percent said they were "lower class."

In another poll, taken by Gallup/USA Today in May 2006, 1 percent said they were "upper class," and 6 percent said they were "lower class."

Reflecting a disturbing trend, from 2000-2006 (remember that

2006 was the fifth year of an economic expansion) the income of the median household grew (after inflation) by about $360, or just under one percent (0.7%), according to data by the U.S.

Bureau of the Census, yet median annual earnings by full-time,

year-round workers fell in 2006, for the third year in a row,

down about 1% for both men and women. The decline in median

earnings along with higher household income at the median

suggests that it was more hours worked and more people working, and not higher wages that generated the income growth for middle-class households. 1

In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the

median American family made about $61,000, according to the

Census Bureau's inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what

looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500. 2

OK, so we all know that we are working more for less pay, yet

that pay is buying less and less, so, effectively we are poorer than ever! We realize that we can no longer expect employers to provide affordable health insurance or decent pensions.

We have written proof, provided by our own government and "experts" of what we already know. So… what can be done about it?

Neither political party seems to "get it." Long before $4-a-

gallon gas and the sub-prime mortgage debacle and Bear Stearns'

failure reminded us middle-class workers that we were one

corporate strategy away from losing our paychecks and pensions,

we were already overburdened and burning out. We don't

understand why we work hard and follow all the rules, yet the

rich are getting richer and it is not trickling down...we are

getting poorer.

Got any ideas?? Check out my MySpace at:

http://www.myspace.com/26042607

What a terrible waste

I agree with you as these are the sentiments of a large percentage of people. The question is how do the middle class people organize to correct the corrupt and criminal government that we have in the US. We know what must be done but how do we unite to accomplish this task.

What a Terrible Waste!

Isn't it amazing how all the candidates tell us, the general public that supports them, that they are there for us, and then, they and their "backers" go into this useless, senseless, extremely "selfish" egotistical malarky, spending all this money! My God, think of all the homeless, helpless, starving, and elderly in need, etc., that could have been helped with all this money! It is simply mind-boggling for sure!

With our former "middle America" now dropping swiftly into poverty level, it is simply unforgiveable that things still continue to happen, along with, of course, the "wastefull" billions of "trumped up" charges for military excesses, etc.

I personally believe that it is time for us, the general public, to DEMAND that Congress become accountable immediately, no more graft, etc., or that every member be recalled, and a COMPLETE new assembly be gathered in their place. I further believe that if these people, even the President, should not be allowed to serve more than ONE single term! This, effectively, could stop 75% of all the BS that we are subjected to under their selfish, uncaring, and totally inappropriate behavior that they are dishing out to us, the "believers" who "put them there!"

Time, folks, to get out into the streets, etc., and DEMAND that this change...no IF's, ANDs, or BUTs.

What say you?

GF, a very disillusioned disabled Sr. Citizen who is in dire need for meds, food, and care in many instances. When one has worked, and worked very hard, destroying their very "body" in the process, paying taxes, etc., doing everything that you feel is "right" and more, and with all this aid to foreigners who have fled here, and foreign aid to other countries, etc., isn't it a total Shame that we, those of us who have in the past 50 years given freely, to help others, now find that there is no help for "us" when there IS help for everyone else. SHAME ON YOU, every single member of the Federal and State governments, for not addressing this before, and even still not now. I wonder how you can hold your heads up when you walk into your offices every day. And, further, how you can cash Your paychecks, when you DO NOT keep faith with your promise(s) to keep us first in your interests (shich is "the country" effectively. Again, "SHAME ON YOU, ALL OF YOU!"