I early retired because 40 years of nursing destroyed my knees and back. I survive on a pension and savings and have been waiting until I can add Social Security to that mix in a bit under 2 years. Now they want to pull that out, too.
I planned, saved, prepared. I drove a 20 year old car until it was just about in the grave and got a new one last year. I live withing my limited means waiting until the day when I can let go of peanut butter and ramen noodles. No, I'm not poor, just need to be very careful with my funds.
I've been payng into the system since 1969 and carefully planning my future decades in advance. I watched as people who didn't plan were forced into the virtual poverty of having nothing but Social Security to live on. It isn't pretty trying to decide about groceries for a month or paying for your prescription. The Hobsons Choice of dying of starvation or dying from the condition you take meds for shouldn't be necessary. Ever.
My union gave up pay raise after pay raise to maintain pension to the point that when I retired they were only able to hire the most awful applicants because our wages were $ 5-7 per hour behind the private sector.
In Wisconsin, Walker and his not so merry band of Rethuglicans are screwing me (and we're fighting back), but now Obama and the Democrats are going to finish the con job.
I'm not alone.
I'm sick deep in my soul about the betrayal from a man and a party that I have promoted and given my efforts to for decades. The parade of folding and caving on issues important to every working American has done more to demoralize me than anything that Republicans have ever done.
I'm tired of sacrificing while the monied elite cram their wallets fuller. I'm exhausted watching the criminal acts of corporations, Wall Street, and Banks go unpunished because the perpetrators wear suits rather than black masks. I'm agape about the increased boot licking done by members of both parties to monied special interests. And I continue to be stupified by the failure of Democrats to even read (much less follow) democratic principles.
A pox on both their houses if they continue the reverse Robin Hood policy of taking from the poor and vulnerable to continue to give more and more to those who have virtually everything already. Yes, there are a few who stand up for us, but even their voices are drowned out by the thud of campaign payola being air dropped on their fellow representatives who serve their corporate masters so well.
Mostly, I'm tired of supporting, working for, and voting for the party that claims to be "not as bad as those other guys", but goes along with them for the sake of "compromise" and "bipartisanship". If Social Security (which hasn't added a penny to the deficit or debt), Medicare, and Medicaid are sacrificed for more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, someone wil need to explain how this is any different from the screwing we're getting in Wisconsin from Scott Walker.
The class warfare continues in America. The rich are still winning it.
This needs to end.