I
remember ten years ago when a family of four could survive making
$30,000 a year. You may have not lived the high-life but you could
get by and still be able to pay your bills and watch a movie once or
twice a month, but today this kind of money will get you nowhere.
You
can forget about having that house you always wanted or taking your
family out to eat; better yet, you just better keep driving that
clunker around and hope that it does not break down and leave you
jobless. This is where most people would say "okay it's time for
me to do something about making more money to support my family."
So
what do you do? You struggle to find a job that pays more money only
to come to terms that there is no other job making better money
without getting educated in something. So you move on to the next
step, you go to school to get a better education in order to have a
better life in hopes to find happiness and stability. I call this
opportunity, we all have this in our country!
As
an American, I grew up with parents telling me I live in the greatest
country in the world. Here I have opportunity to become whatever I
want as long as I work hard for it. Now it's more about how the
government is going to help everyone. I cannot answer for everyone
else but it seems the harder I work the more money it's costing me. I
am a middle class American with a family of six with a handicapped
child. I cannot get help from the government for my handicapped
daughter at all. My wife doesn't have a Bachelor's degree but does
have some college and this is still not enough to get her a decent
job making enough money to help with childcare costs. It does not pay
for her to get a job, she will work for nothing because all of the
costs go to child care. Why do I pay taxes? Why do I go the the
grocery store and see someone using a food stamp card with more gold
around their neck than most and getting into a brand new Cadillac?
Why do I know people who act crazy just to get a check from the
government to support them when they are more than capable of
working. I grew up around these people and they are by no means
crazy, they are drug addicts. And they always talk about how they got
their free money from the government. To add, they work under the
table for people so they don't have to pay taxes and lose their
government check. Is this the America I love? Absolutely not!
I do
not live rich, I have a typical family size home with a slightly used
car I purchased from Carmax. I live on a budget so I can provide
health care, food, clothing, etc..
I
worked hard for what I have. I worked as a mechanic growing up making
between $20 - 30,000 a year back in the late 90's. I realized I
wanted a family so I moved on to better things in life (to me this is
why I love america, I have the opportunity to be whoever I want to
be) after some mishaps and mistakes in life I moved to South Carolina
in order to start over and go back to school. I worked at a
manufacturing facility and worked 12 hour shifts. Once my shift was
over, I went across the street to go to school for 3 hours a day, 3
days a week for 4 1/2 years. I also joined the Army National Guard
served 5 years 8 months honorably. I was put out on a medical
discharge. I joined the guard in order to serve my country because I
love my country. I finally graduated in 2007 with an Associated
degree in computer science. I did not stop there, I continued to go
to college to pursue a Bachelor's in Science. I worked as an intern
for free in order to get the experience I needed to find a good
paying job. In 2012 I finally graduated with a Bachelor's degree.
After all of the hard work, It finally paid off and I got a decent
job making 50,000 a year.
Now
this isn't bad money but it's not great money either considering how
much health care cost these days. Let's not forget how much gas,
food, energy and taxes that has gone up in the past ten years. Is
this caused by the government? For the most part yes. When you
strangle big companies by taxing them more and more people lose their
jobs. They stop hiring and start adding temp workers instead. I have
seen this with my own two eyes.
Capsugel
2010, went from having a fully employed staff to minimizing down to
half and using temp workers to fill the jobs so they would not have
to provide benefits. Benefit costs increased, more work was added on
to the permanent employees. Fewer jobs were created. The product
became cheaper made due to the rising costs in material and gas. More
work was being returned due to the fact that all of us workers had to
produce double of what we had to do in the past. We were unable to
watch the product and sample it thoroughly because we all had a quota
to meet. If we did not meet the quota we would be replaced by temp
workers that made far less money and no benefits. Is this the kind of
America I grew up in?
This
is also caused by China making product cheaper and not caring about
their employees. America cares! At least our country used to. Why
doesn't Obama work on this issue? Oh that's right, he is more worried
about lying to America and telling everyone what they want to hear.
You want free health care? You got it! You want a free ride in the
government? You got it! In the meantime behind our backs, he is
living on $400,000 a year, taking trips all over the country, and
making us by insurance that is expensive; and by the way, he does not
have to live under his own rules of the “Obamination
Care”.
Do
the math people! Most people will not be able to afford insurance
under the Affordable Health Care Act either. You will either have to
pay the fine each year (for me it would be $954.00 in 2014, and will
increase every year) or you will have to carry insurance.
So
let me finish my bi$#$#tch by breaking down my costs at the time
being:
Monthly
credits
Salary:
4750
Monthly
debits
Federal
Income: 309.72
Federal
Medicare: 63.00
Federal
Social: 270.20
Georgia:
161.00
-------------------
Taxes:
803.00
Take
Home: 3946.08
401K
: 130.00
Suppl
Life Sal: 38.00
POS
Health Ins: 376.00 this is going up
----------------------------
Ins/Life/401k:
544.00
after
401/Life/Health: 3402.08
Monthly
Budget / Bills:
Electric:
250.00
Water:
40.00 estimated
Gas
energy: 25.00
Gasoline:
200.00
Car
Payment: 319.00
Student
Loans: 330.00
Food:
300.00
Phone/TV/Int:
144.00
Car
Ins: 119.00
House
Payment: 947.00
728.00
left over
Now
that does not seem like a bad amount to have left over but this does
not include the cost for clothes, unpaid medical costs for my
handicapped child, vehicle maintenance, school supplies, dental costs
as well as rising health care costs. As you can see, there is not
much left over and the only enjoyment we get as a family is TV. No
vacations, no dinner nights. No nothing!!!!
I
do not expect a raise any time soon and hopefully I will not loose my
job and have to go belly up.
Obama!
What are you going to do for the middle class? You can't squeeze
blood out of a turnip!!!. We cannot afford your crappy health care
idea.
“The
rich stay rich and the poor get poorer.”
