With all the stress on the common people of this country, we need each other more than ever. Sure, work, home, family pulls at your attention. But tell you what- if we don't band together and start standing up for the rights of the middle class and what we believe is good and decent, we will be the next endangered species. Unlike the animals, there won't be any government program looking to save us.
The middle class pays more taxes than any other group. We bear more of the burden of price increases. We don't qualify for a lot of government help programs, yet for many of us, we only make a few dollars too much for those benefits. Whether you are lower, upper or smack dab right in the middle, it's the middle class who get up and go to work each day. We pick up the garbage, take care of the elderly that families are too busy for, we clean the hotel rooms and serve the food.
A lot of us don't even financially qualify for middle class. Yet we work just as hard, if not harder, doing physical labor for a living. We consider ourselves part of the middle class because we work, even if our paychecks don't reflect it. And it's time they did.
Every time there is an attempt to make the minimum wage current to cost of living, the first thing we hear is that doing so will cause inflation and massive job layoffs. Yet you don't hear that kind of talk when Congress goes to vote themselves a raise. Or when CEO's bargain for multi-million dollar salaries. If minimum and lower wage workers have the ability to effect the economy so powerfully, where is our voice in this economic mess?
I recently read that if the minimum wage had been tied to inflation at it's inception, it would now be just over $15 an hour. With minimum wage now at $6.50 an hour, it's easy to see how much less stressful it would be to keep food on the table and the lights on for millions of working class families in this country with an extra $9 an hour. It's time Congress started doing something for the people who REALLY write their paychecks and it's not the special interest lobbyists.
Either that, or it's time we exercise our voting power and dump the whole lot of them. Start over in both houses of Congress. Every time an incumbent comes up for election in the next 6 years, vote for the other guy. Or if you have to vote party line in your state, stay home. Tell everyone you know to do the same. It wouldn't matter what party the new guy represents. The trick is to get rid of the self-serving, long term career politicians padding the national budget with pork projects for their friends. Get rid of the guys giving their corporate buddies juicy government contracts. Just getting new people in Congress has to stir up the status quo. Nothing could be worse than the mess we have now.
Just think of it, folks. In just six short years we could completely overhaul Congress. If the 'little people' of America do that, do you think they'll listen to us then?
