Funding our Government Selling Out the Middle Class

Soon there will be new motto for our country. “E pluribus Unum” will soon be replaced by “every person for themselves”.  

In one fell swoop this racist Congress turn back the clock on the poor and middle class by twenty years. There is no explanation for why blacks die at disproportionate rate when white cops engage with black men. Syndicated columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote that young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than young white men. If this is true of law enforcement it seems logical to me that the same attitude would be found in the legislature and the executive branch of our Government. Congress has been persistent in their defiance of President Obama’s agenda. The Republican’s have gone so far as to close down the government. Now we are faced with both Houses having a Republican majority.

Passage of the Omnibus Spending Bill which funded the Government for the next fiscal year has provision that should frighten most middle class and underprivileged Americans.

The bill includes language that would gut Union pension plans up to 40%. 

The Senior Journal reported; “This last minute backroom deal would, for the first time, amend the pension law to allow the earned vested benefits of retirees to be cut,” leaving millions of retirees negatively affected. The next pension check they receive could be $60 on every $ 100 they anticipated receiving. Driving this point home, if the average retiree already vested in their pension program, receiving $300 a month, can now anticipate that soon that same check will be $180 per month.  The Kline-Miller amendment is a disaster for millions of retirees according to the Los Angeles Times.

Low income families have also been target in the new funding bill.  The Huffington Post reported, “Congress did manage to trim a few areas of the budget. For example, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly referred to as WIC, was on the receiving end of a $93 million budget cut. WIC provides low-income mothers and children with vouchers that can be exchanged for food which meets certain nutrition guidelines, although I imagine they'll be handing out a few less vouchers after this deal goes through. If you're a family that depends on WIC to put food on the table, this is terrible news.

Congress found money to fund banks that make bad deals when using FDIC secured savings or we are once again in the business of guaranteeing gamblers that when they go to the roulette table their losses will be covered by taxpayers’ dollars. No surprise but this part of the bill was authored by Citibank the same people who brought us the last bank failure that cost the American taxpayer $600 billion dollars.

This is a different America from the one I knew as a child. For a long time we have been warned about the squeeze on the middle class and the growing division between the haves and the have not’s but we have ignored those warning and the last election cycle was proof of our indifference.

Today, we have a black President but he is crippled by the institutional racism found on the Hill. I feel ashamed for my Country.

Today, we have cops killing black men for selling cigarettes on the street and ignoring his cries; “I can breathe” a cry he made 11 times.

Today, we have a cop who shot and killed a preteen black boy carrying a toy gun. A cop who did not pass weapons training in his previous position but was put on the streets of Cleveland with a live weapon.

Racism is alive and well in this Country. I thought that with the Civil Rights Amendment and 50 years, we would elect a black president and trust him to guide this Country but I was wrong.

We are in trouble. The World is in chaos. The World cannot afford an America in turmoil. America must be the moral conscience for World leaders. Unfortunately, we look more like a dysfunctional family than leadership with a moral conscience.

If we are not careful, we will become a caliphate of the rich and the entitled.

What should we expect for the average person?

A Walmart existence with substandard salaries that when combined with government handouts will offer basic survival and no more. Who will lead the caliphate?  The Koch Brothers Sheldon Adelson, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros names you know because they are behind the charge to widen the dearth between the rich and poor.