What Mid-terms? It’s All About Paying the Bills

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Sunday, August 15, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

What Mid-terms? It’s All About Paying the Bills

by Donna Smith

Seems hard for elected folks and think tankers and others in the upper crust to imagine or recall, but most Americans aren't spending a lot of time thinking about the subtleties of political gamesmanship or strategy for the mid-term elections. Most Americans are thinking about paying the bills. The insistent bills that never stop - the mortgage or rent, the food, the gas or transport to get to and from work or looking for work, the utilities, the medical insurance or costs. It's about the bills and staying alive.

Over the past two years, I've marveled as I watch folks on every side of the political spectrum and those who see themselves as pristinely distant from the political parties argue passionately about the issues of the day. Wall Street vs. Main Street, some used as a battle cry. Yet millions of this nation's people are so entrenched is just keeping their financial heads above water that even that distinction aimed at somehow creating the illusion of empathy seems empty and foolish.

Watch the media offer up personal finance experts who act ever so concerned about the unemployment rates and then advise those facing unemployment to use their "emergency funds" carefully and slowly. Laughable. It isn't that most American workers don't hear the advice to keep some emergency funds for those sure-to-come rainy days. It is simply impossible for most families to sock away much if any money during such stressful times, much less months of living-expense reserves.

The reality most Americans live with is a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle of necessity filled with worry about getting paid something, anything before the next round of bills come due and then past due. Unemployment benefits provide some relief for some, but in reality few people can support families for long on unemployment benefits. You pay one bill one month, bargain with the other creditors for time and then reverse the process the next month. You juggle. You worry. You splurge on a modest meal somewhere because the family hasn't gone anywhere for months and then worry about who to short in the next round of bills. You feel guilty. The phone calls are increasingly from creditors reminding you of past due payments and then threatening more collection action as you beg and barter for time.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/15

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[dkf]

2. Jobs jobs jobs.

That is what will better the situation for everyone. Any policy that is not about jobs is another failure of congress and this President. And thinking unemployment insurance is the cure all simply doesn't hack it. That is the half assed solution.

[FirstLight]

3. Where's the New america, the infrastructure we were going to build?

Progressive dissapointment be damned...this is about all of us!

I am tired of living in poverty, tired of wondering how to make ends meet, tired of believing that there is a way out...doubting not just my own abilities, but the ability of anyone to help us out of this hole, much less the federal govt.

I worked my ass off today foir $10 an hour, and will be killing myself for this stupid temp job for the next 7 days (traveling around the lake at random places doing surveys in parking lots)... JUST because i need to have back to school money for the kids next week. Under other regular circimstances, I'd charge more and have a better schedule -instead of being shuffled around by someone who can;t find their ass from a hole in the ground. But I suck it up, take my tylenol for my arthritic feet and get on with it.

Ready for a "real" job, but I haven't had one in so long, i wonder if I could cut it now, too...