Middle class decline looms over final years of Obama presidency

[davidthegnome]

72. Hmm

This particular working class individual is grateful to finally have health insurance (effective march first, hell of a deal) in addition to being grateful to the man who put that together. It wasn't what I wanted - and there are plenty of people in my state who are still screwed due to my Governor refusing to pass medicaid expansion... but when it comes to my personal economy, I am grateful to have health insurance. The risk there is that, if I lose my job, or if my income drops much, I'll have to give it up again, I'll be told to apply for Mainecare, routinely rejected, and back to square one...

I think Obama is a man who tried, who tried damned hard to get some good things done. I think he succeeded somewhat - and was able to help many people. Unfortunately, I do not believe it will take long for that work to be undone. I do not believe it will take long for Republican "destructionism" (we're well beyond "obstructionism" at this point) to undo what positive changes have been made in our economy.

Frankly, I think a Republican victory is likely in the 2016 Presidential election. I'm going to do my damndest to fight it, but, I don't have that much hope for victory. We have a senate full of republicans, a congress full of them, an electorate that is increasingly not well educated and perhaps semi-literate at best. While there may have been a slight uptick in wages for those of us at the bottom, we are working harder since that time. Productivity, generally speaking, is pretty damned high... and guess what a slight uptick means when you earn minimum wage? Not to knock it - as I'm grateful for my bread... but when minimum wage is so slow that it hasn't kept up with inflation, cannot sustain costs of living and generally leaves people in desperate poverty... yeah, I'd say it's pretty damned broken and urgently requires fixing.

It seems likely that, in the years to come, many more members of the middle class will join those of us down here among the working poor or desperately impoverished. It's cheaper to hire the Chinese. It's cheaper to outsource labor to third-world Countries. You can save a fortune by putting together a few offshore tax havens as well. The system favors the rich, the politicians work for them - and most of the rest of us are caught between a rock and a hard place.

I just... hope that I'm wrong. There is enough compassion, enough heart, bravery and dedication among the middle class and the working class to change this. There is enough humanity and empathy left within your average person that it's not too late for us to declare "Game over" for the corporations and their stooges - and we still have some time.

All that said, my faith is with the American people, not with our government or it's ability to accomplish things that are meaningful and lasting. If it's going to be done, we have to do it.