Wish I could say I am middle class. I've a bachelors degree, I had a house, have children with hopes of the future. But unemployment is the dividing line amongst the classes isn't it?
Middle class families could survive for a few months on savings, because they aren't living paycheck to paycheck. They can put away money for emergencies, college funds and retirement. So what percent of Americans are Middleclass?
Time magazine reported in 2011 that 64% of Americans don't have $1000 in savings. In CNN Money in June of 2013, 74% of Americans polled didn't have $1000 in savings. Notice how the number of Americans without an extra grand in the bank keeps going up. Based on these articles alone, we could speculate that middle class Americans are less than a third of the population. The two-thirds of Americans really don't need the government to be shutdown right now.
The WIC program, that provides food for women and children is running on fumes. With Federal funds stopped, WIC in many states aren't issuing new vouchers to people in need and can't promise continued support for those already in the program. State funds only lasts weeks.
A little girl in a Philadelphia school died because of asthma, there was no school nurse on duty because hundreds had been let go in Pennsylvania. The governor cut one BILLION dollars from the education budget, while giving tax breaks to corporations.
There's talk of amongst the Republican ranks of cutting Social Security to balance the deficit. Social Security is funded by payroll taxes! It doesn't contribute to the deficit! The Republicans (and the Democrats, quiet as it's kept) want to keep taking more of our money to pay for their wars and corporate tax breaks.
Why are we really having this government shutdown? I'd bet lunch money it's not about the Affordable Health Care Act. Americans being forced to buy an expensive service without price controls equating to a bailout for the healthcare industry and bid pharma. Politicians aren't upset about that. The Act was a pretext to shutdown the government, like gas bombs was a pretext to attack Syria.
If corporate owners want deregulation, one way to get it is by crippling the government so it can't regulate. How much regulation can be enforced during a government shutdown? This may be the new normal fascists want in America, a broken government always on the edge of economic collapse.
fin.
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