I'm Sacrificing As Fast As I Can

[craz3z]

Last night, Tom Brokaw asked the candidates what sacrifices they would ask the American people to make in the face of the financial crisis. This morning I watched an economist who writes for one of the big newspapers on TV lamenting that neither candidate really answered that question, but the American people need to be told they've been living beyond their means, and things are really, really bad now. Here’s a newsflash for them: economic sacrifice in a bad economy is not one of choice, and it comes first to those who have the least.

Any time the words “American people” are used you just know it means “the middle class is gonna get screwed”. The message being trumpeted by the haves as they lecture the have-nots is subtle but clear: once again the heaviest burden is going to fall on the backs of people like you and me. Though this idea of sacrifice may be new to the Wall Street CEOs flying around in their Lear jets, it’s something that those of us on Main Street were forced to come to grips with a long time ago.

I’ve lost two jobs in the last 4 years because the companies went out of business due to the lousy economic policies of George W. Bush. Try looking for a job in this economy. It ain’t pretty. My 401K is all I’ll have when I retire, and I suddenly find myself not as prepared for retirement as I was 3 weeks ago because somebody bet the house with my money. I know they may find this hard to believe, but most of us don’t sit around the table and debate whether to go out to dinner or pay the electric bill. Yet last week we sat around that very same table and watched incredulously as the government gave the Masters of the Universe, who owe more money than exists in the entire universe, a $700 billion handout and turned its back on people like you and me AGAIN. And they have the nerve to ask us to sacrifice? As if we had anything LEFT?

The right answer to Brokaw’s question, and the one I would have liked to have seen Obama give, would have been to point out that the “American people” already are sacrificing. They haven’t had a real wage increase in 30 years. They’ve been losing their homes, their jobs, their health insurance and their retirement. And there's this guy, that one, on the other side of the stage who has the balls to stand there and argue that the Masters of the Universe should be allowed to hold on to every last penny with their grubby little fingers. After all, they might have to eat at four star restaurants instead of five. Boo hoo. Please excuse us if we have trouble feeling sorry for the people who, because they are so well off, woke up one day three weeks ago and suddenly realized this economy sucks.

In other words, please don’t remind me that I have sacrifices to make. I do it every day. But we all have to sacrifice equally or it’s not a sacrifice. It’s class warfare.

[Winterblues]

1. Those making over $250 thousand a year will be asked to sacrifice some

All the rest are being asked to conserve energy and recycle and volunteer..Obama was quite specific about this and i don't understand how anyone could have missed it..

[CJCRANE]

2. Obama specified a middle-class tax-cut for 95% of working families

and investments in infratructure and alternate energy that would create jobs.

I think he made his point pretty clearly.