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Sat 28 Aug, 2004 04:29 pm
Quote:Economic Squeeze Plaguing Middle-Class Families
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: August 28, 2004
EWTON, Iowa - Sure, she is upset that she cannot afford health care, and it hurts that higher tuition costs at the community college where she carries a full load have put her deeper in debt. But at the end of this month, Molly Illingworth will suffer the worst blow yet: she is getting laid off by her mother.
"I hate to close the shop," says Pam DeBruyn, Molly's mother, who owns a small party and office supply store here, and also works full time as a graphic designer. She needs the designer job for the health insurance, so she will close the store, and with it will go her daughter's employment.
In this Iowa family, one generation is trying to step through the gateway to the middle class; the other is struggling to stay in it. And it is the middle-class squeeze - rising college tuition and soaring health care premiums at a time when wages are stagnant and job creation is sluggish - that may be the sleeper economic issue of the presidential campaign.
More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/campaign/28econ.html
I found the comments of one self-described "pretty staunch Bush Republican", Todd Canny, especially striking:
Quote:"... we're paying a lot more for health care co-pays and premiums, which is through my wife's job as a teacher. And trying to save for college for these three little ones has gotten a lot harder.
-snip-
Mr. Canny said the Bush tax cut did not help his personal finances as much as the rising health care costs and the higher price tag for filling his S.U.V. tank hurt them. Mr. Canny has yet to give Senator Kerry, who used the term "middle class'' eight times in his Democratic Party acceptance speech, a second look.
"But if things continue to get worse, it may start to affect my vote," Mr. Canny said.
I think the most important issue is the restoration of personal freedoms being eroded by the patriot act among other things......of what use is it to be safe if you're not free?
According to the last opinion poll I saw the priorties of the respondents were foreign policy, followed by national security, then the economy.
Bush's actions on national security and the economy are favorable to him. while the jury is still out on foreign policy.
Just my opinion of course.
Re: The Most Important Issue of this Election?
I think the most important issue should be in restoring the integrity of the election process it's self. So that we don't end up with a president who is appointed by the supreme court again.
Gay marriage should be a big issue. They want to amend the constitution so that they can justify their bigotry, to what end?
Terrorism is actually around the middle of my priority scale.
Who's "they"? Heterosexuals? As many Dems as Reps are both for and against the gay marriage amendment.
Re: The Most Important Issue of this Election?
Important? Sure. The most important issue of this election? I don't think so. Granted, the American middle class isn't doing as well as when Mr. Bush took office. But I still believe that in every other country of the world, the middle class would happily trade its own problems for those of America's.
In my opinion, the most important issues of this election are 1) that one candidate has a workably firm grip on reality, while the other is so entangled in his own campaign spin that he's lost touch with the real world -- to the point where he's firing advisors for telling him things like they are. Most important issue #2: The undermining of government transparency and civil rights to an extent that seems more typical for banana republics than for the "last hope on Earth" (PATRIOT act, Guantanamo Bay, library snooping.)
If America doesn't get its democracy fixed and doesn't start making policies for the real world again, that creates a huge, long lasting problem for the whole world. The suffering of the middle class alleged by the article is real, but it's a luxury problem by comparison. The American middle class will be okay, even if it could do better.
1. healthcare
2. international relations (get the f*** out of Iraq)
3. quality education from pre-school to grad school for ALL .
4. quality of life issues (clean water, air, land preservation, etc) actually addressed as a priority
5. significantly reduced military spending.
6. absolute and total separation of church and state.
7. abolition of local school boards and the realization that education is not based on a rural farm economy (year around schools)
8. enforce the bill of rights
9. utilize the vast resources of america to enrich not only our citizens but the world at large.
10. don't hit, play nice and share your toys.
dys any thinking person would be hard put to disagree with your list, no matter what the order.....
I have to agree on healthcare.
I just think we should force pharms to be reasonably priced, cap malpractice suits, bring doctor fees, and other healthcare fees back down to reasonable prices.
Insurance would be affordable. I can afford car insurance and life insurance. I should be able to afford health insurance.
National healthcare just won't work, IMO.
Huh. I was actually going for "most important" in terms of "the issue that is most likely to swing swing voters", or "the issue that is most likely to actually have an effect on the outcome of the election", but this is an interesting direction, keep it up.
btw Sofia you might like Kerry's proposal on health care... :-)
Quote:he 2004 Economic Report of the President told us what George Bush's economists think, though we're unlikely to hear anything as blunt at next week's convention. According to the report, health costs are too high because people have too much insurance and purchase too much medical care. What we need, then, are policies, like tax-advantaged health savings accounts tied to plans with high deductibles, that induce people to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket. (Cynics would say that this is just a rationale for yet another tax shelter for the wealthy, but the economists who wrote the report are probably sincere.)
John Kerry's economic advisers have a very different analysis: they believe that health costs are too high because private insurance companies have excessive overhead, mainly because they are trying to avoid covering high-risk patients. What we need, according to this view, is for the government to assume more of the risk, for example by picking up catastrophic health costs, thereby reducing the incentive for socially wasteful spending, and making employment-based insurance easier to get.
A smart economist can come up with theoretical justifications for either argument. The evidence suggests, however, that the Kerry position is much closer to the truth.
The fact is that the mainly private U.S. health care system spends far more than the mainly public health care systems of other advanced countries, but gets worse results. In 2001, we spent $4,887 on health care per capita, compared with $2,792 in Canada and $2,561 in France. Yet the U.S. does worse than either country by any measure of health care success you care to name - life expectancy, infant mortality, whatever. (At its best, U.S. health care is the best in the world. But the ranks of Americans who can't afford the best, and may have no insurance at all, are large and growing.)
And the U.S. system does have very high overhead: private insurers and H.M.O.'s spend much more on administrative expenses, as opposed to actual medical treatment, than public agencies at home or abroad.
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32295
McGentrix wrote:Who's "they"? Heterosexuals? As many Dems as Reps are both for and against the gay marriage amendment.
Yes, there's a few bigoted Democrats that haven't jumped over to the Republican party yet. Kerry doesn't support an amendment though, so as long as a presidential democrat doesn't support it, it doesn't really matter what the few bigoted Democrats want.
Also, I agree that Healthcare should be near the top. I don't seem to think about it as much now that I finally have Insurance.
The largest contingent trustworthy to be anti-gay rights, besides Religious Righties, are black.
Blacks are solidly Democrat, and almost as solidly anti-gay rights. Go figure...
I'd be very interested in their particular stripe of liberalism, voting and issue wise.
A recent 'set to' I enjoined was with a few black students in a psychology class, who began by saying they were angry that gays were comparing their right to marry with blacks' civil rights. Maybe I'm missing something--but the two seem identical to me.
There have been discussions about that here. One of the points I remember is that (many, if not all) gay/lesbian people can pick and choose when to reveal their status in a way that black people can't. A straight-acting guy going into a store can "pass" (not noticably differ from the majority) in a way that a black person can't.
I don't think gays have ever been enslaved or sold as property on the public auction block...that is something that sets them well apart wouldn't you agree?
Responding to--
gay/lesbian people can pick and choose when to reveal their status in a way that black people can't.
-----
That doesn't seem like a good reason to deny gay people the right to marry. Because they can 'pass' for straight.
My point was that no group should single out another group, and condemn them to parsed freedom. This happened to blacks, and I would have thought they would be even more instrumental in defending other groups' rights--having had theirs denied them for so long. Yet, statistically, blacks are overwhelmingly against gay rights... but, vote almost unanimously Democrat...?
I cited the Constitution.
The responses I got:
The Constitution isn't moral.
God said...
Those people aren't born that way...
They're defected. We shouldn't give them rights, as if they're healthy people.
And, I was noted as a reason why the world is going to Hell.
<Though I may be, it should be for something a bit more significant, no?>
Anyway, maybe I'll start a thread on blacks' voting/issue choices. Wish we had more black members. <or more than I THINK we do.>
sifia, just a thought here but could the blacks you refer to be exhibiting more of a
"religious" attitude than a political one?
dyslexia wrote:sifia, just a thought here but could the blacks you refer to be exhibiting more of a
"religious" attitude than a political one?
It doesn't matter. They have their views, and most of them don't like the civil rights of the 60's being used as a spring board for the gay agenda. You can't chose to be balck but you can chose to be gay. If it can be proven that people are born that way and that it is genitic then people's minds will be changed, including mine. Until that time it is a choice and society shouldn't change to meet anothers choice.
dyslexia wrote:sifia, just a thought here but could the blacks you refer to be exhibiting more of a
"religious" attitude than a political one?
Most of the black people I've known were very religious. So I believe that religion does play a big part. As far as gays using 1960's civil rights as a comparison, I think blacks should just get over it. If blacks really cared about equality and discrimination it wouldn't bother them. But then, I think when a lot of blacks talk about civil rights they only care about it for them selves. I've found a lot of blacks to be racist, even though they won't admit it.
Anyway, by mentioning the gay marriage issue I didn't mean to take this thread off topic.
dys-- yes.
Actually, I guess that sort of clears it up. They aren't voting the issue. They poll against it--but vote with the Dems.
I have seen several black clerics hold press conferences, trying to get some political strength--but they haven't gained any power.
I was surprised to read an article citing statistics of something like over 60% of NAACP members being strongly against Gay Marriage--and I had thought that may translate into a leeching of black votes--but it doesn't seem to.
Baldimo-- I can't cite personal experience, but from a few friends over the years, mental health clients, and reading material (science and psychology)--I think most gay people are born gay.
How has science proven gay people are born gay? I would like to see the biology on it. When it comes to psychology it isn't an exact science by any means. Until we learn how the brain works psychology is at best a guessing game. As stated I would like to see the biology on the issue and go from there. Is there a gay gene, or a gay chromosome?
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