Open Letter to the Honorable President Barack Obama:

Dear Honorable President Obama:

For eight years, the Republicans could have cared less about reforming the health care system of our nation. As long as they could line their pockets on the misery of those needing health care services, they were content and happy to be in control of a failing system. So why now are we bending over backwards to support their ability to pro-offer opinions/solutions to solve the health care crisis when it is their failed policies that were in existence for eight years that caused much of our nation's financial problems and deficits?

If we, the voters, wanted the Republican's solutions/opinions, we as a public would have voted for that. We didn't. We voted for the change you promised. Now, respectfully sir, we will know you by what you do, not what you say. Although what you say sounds like it tastes good, we can't eat words. We need real jobs, real shelter, real health care and real food. We are watching your actions to match your words.

While you are bending to meet the Republican agenda half way, we on the bottom have not even been given the time to stand up straight after spending eight (8) long years bent over. It would appear your compromises and attempts at bi-partisanship just allow us to move 1/4 up from the ground, still bent over to serve as sex slaves for the wealthy and the corporations of the world. We didn't vote for that.

Where is the change you promised?

MESSAGE FROM SENATOR SHERROD BROWN

An Important Message from
Senator Sherrod Brown about
Health Care Reform

Dear Friend,

You may have seen a lot of me lately. I've been speaking out and setting the record straight on why it's critical that health care reform legislation includes a public option. And now that the House has passed it, it's now up to the Senate to act.


I refuse to sit by watching families struggle to make ends meet while political pundits, ultra-conservative media talking heads, and the Republican Party blatantly spout misinformation and resort to fear-mongering. It's not only ludicrous -- it's dangerous and will end up costing our nation dearly.


As one of my most steadfast supporters, you know how important it is that we pass meaningful health insurance reforms -- which will provide each and every American with quality, affordable coverage.


We all know how difficult enacting these important changes is proving to be. At every turn, big pharma and big insurance -- along with their cronies in Washington -- are throwing up roadblocks and undermining our Democratic reform efforts.

I recently spoke about this very issue on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Watch it here:

http://www.democratsenators.org/o/9/t/13/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=347 .


Including a strong public option in the Senate health care reform bill would be a major victory for taxpayers, middle-class families, and American businesses.

It will inject much-needed competition into the insurance marketplace, keep HMOs honest, and ensure that families across the country have their choice of affordable, quality health plans.


Meanwhile, the GOP is doing everything possible to derail a strong public option and cling to the status quo. They're bending over backwards trying to protect their big-money supporters in the insurance industry, who are only concerned about their bottom line -- while my Democratic colleagues and I are looking out for the best interests of our citizens.


We must deliver reform for all Americans, many of whom have lost so much already as a result of the housing crisis, the financial meltdown, and the recession in the last year.


You can help spread the word by forwarding this email to as many people as possible; just click here:

http://www.democratsenators.org/o/9/t/13/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=347 .

Thank you again for your support. Together we will finally put middle-class families ahead of the insurance industry.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
U.S. Senator, Ohio


P.S. Time is running out to ensure a public option is part of health care reform legislation. Help me get the word out by clicking here:
http://www.democratsenators.org/o/9/t/13/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=347 .
Set the record straight about the public option -- please forward this email to everyone you know. Thanks for doing your part.

Health Care News from President Barack Obama - The Real Truth the Republicans Don't Want You To Know!

Health Care News from President Barack Obama:

Dear Friend,

If you’re like most Americans, there’s nothing more important to you about health care than peace of mind.

Given the status quo, that’s understandable. The current system often denies insurance due to pre-existing conditions, charges steep out-of-pocket fees – and sometimes isn’t there at all if you become seriously ill.

It’s time to fix our unsustainable insurance system and create a new foundation for health care security. That means guaranteeing your health care security and stability with eight basic consumer protections:

No discrimination for pre-existing conditions
No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays
No cost-sharing for preventive care
No dropping of coverage if you become seriously ill
No gender discrimination
No annual or lifetime caps on coverage
Extended coverage for young adults
Guaranteed insurance renewal so long as premiums are paid
Learn more about these consumer protections at Whitehouse.gov.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Over the next month there is going to be an avalanche of misinformation and scare tactics from those seeking to perpetuate the status quo. But we know the cost of doing nothing is too high. Health care costs will double over the next decade, millions more will become uninsured, and state and local governments will go bankrupt.

It’s time to act and reform health insurance, drive down costs and guarantee the health care security and stability of every American family. You can help by putting these core principles of reform in the hands of your friends, your family, and the rest of your social network.

Thank you,
Barack Obama


Editor Side Note: On the Daily Show broadcast on Monday, July 27, 2009, conservative columnist, Bill Kristol, that was credited with stopping Hilliary Clinton from passing universal health care during the Clinton Administration, admitted that the govenment supplies and administers the best quality health care available. He stated with agreement that the common or poor folk don't deserve quality, affordable health care. Hear for yourself, the Republicans admitting that Barack Obama's plan is the best quality, affordable health care for all: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/239178/mon-july-27-2009-bill-kristol


Next Week: ?

JUST MAYBE WHY SARAH PALIN LEFT!

Some things are just more important than country and world events!

I have watched and listened for the past few days to commentaries from all the major networks theorizing why Sarah Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska before the end of her term. Everything from aspirations for the Presidency, state and federal investigations, legal fees, and so on. I, also, listened to Sarah Palin's press conference and I have to admit, it first seemed bizarre at best, but her words stuck in my mind.

I'm no Sarah Palin fan, but I marginally sympathized with her watching the Republican Party use her during the campaign to bolster the old, tired image, honorable as he may be, of John McCain. Even though I supported Obama during the campaign, and still do, I often felt that she was being treated unfairly by a press ready to destroy anything in its' path for the sake of the sale of magazines and newspapers or to increase viewership. She seemed so naive.

As a parent of a severely disabled or Differently Abled Adult, I would cringe every time she claimed to be an Advocate for the Disabled, knowing full well that she represented a party that represents the wealthy. The same party that has demonstrated time and time again, that it cares nothing for the elderly and poor, let alone the disabled. The same party that nullified the American With Disabilities Act by exempting all of the small business and governments, while at the same time standing up and stating that 95% of all the new jobs were going to be created by the small businesses. They knew full well that 95% of America was not going to be accessible to the disabled. They stood up and touted that George H. W. Bush, Sr. passed the American With Disabilities Act, while at the same time failed to provide proper funding for it. All the disabled represented to most Republicans were dollar signs and a burden on the budget. That statement may, in part, be true for both parties today as States struggle to meet their budgets.

Often during the campaign, I would see Sarah Palin traveling about without her "severely" disabled son, with a whole entourage of people ready to deal with him. She often would grab him for a photo opportunity as she spoke of her advocacy and then handed him right back to the nearest person, pretending that she really knew what it was like to raise a severely disabled child in America on limited funds.

Well it now occurs to me that after being beat up by members of the press and her own party and after careful consideration of her circumstances and as her child grows and she begins to realize that he is not progressing the way a typical child does, that, perhaps, just maybe, the real reason Sarah Palin has decided to quit politics, at least for now, is that God has placed into her arms her greatest and most important challenge to date.....her "special" needs son. Being the dedicated, and what seems to be honorable person that she is, maybe she has finally decided her true calling and realized the real work that lies ahead for her! Her place may be with her family for now.

If that's the case, God bless Sarah Palin in her new endeavors. She is in for much work, heartache, joy, blessings and challenges as this unique individual that God has placed in her life reveals himself to the world. Sarah Palin will need all of our prayers and support and maybe, now, with her financial troubles, Universal Health Care with a single payer option. Godspeed Sarah Palin.

SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE PLAN NOW

REAL CHANGE IS SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE



Please call your Representatives and Senators now and tell them we need real change, the real change we voted for in November, 2008.



We need to take the profit out of health care. We need to make sure that all citizens have access to quality, affordable health care. If everyone is not included in the plan, we will have nothing more than rationed health care for America's most needy and at risk citizens. Let's not give our health care dollars to insurance companys like AIG (AIU) to party on in Las Vegas. Let's put our citizens and people first! It is the right and honorable thing to do. For what you do for the least of those, you do for the greater good. You or your family are an accident away from needing health care and or exhausting whatever coverage you may be fortunate enough to have! Health Care is a right!



Don't believe the hype that the government can't efficiently run a system. Ask any senior citizen on Medicare now if they would rather not have it and the answer more often than not is they can not do without it. It is their lifeline to quality, medical care, with their choice of doctors, hospitals and care providers preserved. The wealthy can still buy "extra" coverage for themselves and their families. We need a basic Single Payer Health Plan for all.



Please call your federal Representative and your Senators and let them know that you want them to support House Bill HR676: http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov and write the White House and let President Barack Obama know that we will not settle for anything less than REAL CHANGE! http://whitehouse.gov/contact



If you're in doubt, watch the following video posted by Marcy Winograd, currently challenging

Representative Jane Harman for the House of Representatives from Southern California in 2010: http://winograd4congress.com/petitions/single_payer_video.php



There is no more important issue for America today to secure America's financial future. Please take two minutes of your time and call.

HEALTH CARE COSTS

WHY DO DEGREED PEOPLE THINK THAT THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO EARN MORE THAN THE AVERAGE WORKER?



I realize this topic is not popular. The subject is greed. When is enough, enough! If you think about the three fields of professions where people make more money in a day than most make working a month or in a year in some cases, you focus on those in the professions of finance (banking, stock broker, insurance etc.), legal (attorneys) and those in the medical professions (pharmaceuticals, doctors, researchers).

Most of these people are undoubtedly bright, and have worked hard for their degrees. There is no argument there. Many have achieved their degrees on tax payer dollars in the way of grants, scholarships and low interest or low cost loans. Many don't even bother to pay their loans back and in years past, that has been overlooked. A chosen few have achieved their degrees on generational wealth that they have had bestowed upon them; wealth that all too often has been made at the expense of others.

Let's realize that these gifted individuals show their gratitude to society by graduating and demanding salaries that are far in excess of what the average person makes. Making more than even those average people that have been in the work force for decades. On both sides of the aisle and those in the middle, they work for the glory of themselves. They have been led to believe that they somehow deserve more than the average person working decades. Worst yet, the average person working has been programmed to believe that these gifted individuals deserve to coast through college on taxpayer paid low-cost loans, scholarships, grants and gifts from their families and that they somehow deserve to make more. WHY?

Do they work any harder than someone who sweats in a welding or machine shop for eight to ten hours a day, trying to support their families and paying their taxes? Do they work any harder than the department store worker who normally gets paid nominally and has to stand on their feet on a concrete floor all day? Do they work harder than the carpenter, the electrician, the brick layer, or the concrete finisher? Anyone who thinks so has never done an honest day's work in their life. Sure they are bright, but let's not discount the knowledge and expertise gained through years of work experience.

Sure they deserve to perhaps start work at a salary commensurate with their years of seniority for time spent at educational institutions; and, perhaps, in line or slightly above the average wage earner for their given working region, but do they really deserve to earn two, five, ten, fifteen times or more than the average worker? How many houses or cars are enough?

This greed has made it unaffordable for everyday hard working people to buy their shelter, food and clothing needs. This greed has made medicine unaffordable and has caused the average hard working Americans not to seek much needed health care and has forced others to buy these high deductible health care policies that are worthless in times of real need. This greed has caused our banking institutions to fail and has allowed the rip off of billions in the way of pension dollars and life savings and investments.

These same individuals want you to believe that it's all the unions' fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unions have done more to lift the wages of every American over the last seven decades than anything else. Henry Ford's philosophy was to provide an affordable product, and a livable wage to every worker so that they, too, could afford his product. That philosophy did more to make other employers compete with each other for workers and to provide livable wages which lifted the standard of living for most. I might add that Ford Motor Company did not ask for or receive any bailouts and they have a union.

It was only when the greedy bankers, insurance companies, attorneys and health care professionals thought that they deserved much, much more than the average worker that caused employers to start screaming about health care costs. This is not new. Since the late 1970s and on through the 1980s, employers across America have assaulted the blue collar worker, which was the base of American manufacturing, by removing hospitalization benefits, limiting wages and threatening the American worker that they had to compete with the rice patty farmer in China. Rather than stand up in America and scream at their legislatures to stop the excessive greed, Corporations touted free market enterprise and they no longer were loyal to America or Americans. They not only threatened, but proceeded to take the jobs, technology and wealth overseas. Now they gripe why Americans are no longer loyal to them.

Why were these Corporations and their executives not charged with treason?

When we talk about containing our national budget, a large part is health care costs comprised largely of Medicaid and Medicare spending, why don't we talk about taking the PROFIT out of health care and limiting the large excessive salaries that have caused our nation such hardship. We could forgive all college loans and make education free if graduates worked for the good of the country and its' people, rather than themselves. Aren't humans valuable and deserving of the most basic of human services?

We need a universal single payer health care system for all Americans. It is the only way to ensure that the public system is not rationed health care for the poor. We need to eliminate the profit out of health care so that we can still pay our physicians a fair market rate and provide quality, affordable health care for all. How much more we would get for our premium buck if we all pulled our money to pay directly for health care services and eliminate the insurance companies and health management organizations (HMOs). Medicare manages to run an efficient system and it is only the large population of baby boomers approaching retirement that threatens it. If everyone paid into the system, the taxpayer system would reap the benefit of profits to be redistributed to the taxpayer, rather than the insurance companies and the HMOs. Those workers could be re-employed to assist health care management through a single payer Medicare system at salaries that could be sustained and supported.

Your taxpayer paid degree does not give you the right to rape the American public!


Next Week: ?

IS BARACK OBAMA THE ENEMA AMERICA NEEDS?

TURDS EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK! OHIO HAS ITS' SHARE OF TURDS!

There is not a day that goes by in this great nation that we don't see, hear or experience the corruption from our government officials. Here in the great State of Ohio, we are rated fifth in the nation by the Department of Justice in their Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the Public Integrity Section for 2006. This report is required to be submitted pursuant to Section 603 of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Ohio Congressman Robert Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit multiple offenses, including honest services fraud, and to making false statements to the United States House of Representatives. Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy and honest services mail fraud involving a Member of the United States House of Representatives, and tax evasion. During 2006 the Branch assisted United States Attorneys' Offices in the handling of vote fraud matters in Ohio, as well as other states.*

In 2006, the Section of the Elections Crime Branch of the U S Department of Justice worked with the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio to obtain the conviction of Ohio fundraiser Thomas Noe for making $45,400 in unlawful conduit campaign contributions. Noe pled guilty and was sentenced to 27 months of imprisonment.*

Federal public corruption convictions by district over the past decade show that Ohio has 538. And that's just the ones they wanted to catch. You have to really tick someone off in Ohio to get convicted of public corruption because most of the time, our government officials just look the other way.*

But the one thing you don't see on the list of federal public corruption convictions are the attorneys that cause so much of this corruption. A few years back, I was called into a major law firm that I was associated with by a newly made partner that I will call Mr. W. It's seems Mr. W. was slightly ticked off that I was trying to hold the Attorneys and Justices in the State of Ohio accountable for their actions and inactions on behalf of the disabled. Mr. W. wanted me to know that I had it all wrong. That I was an idealist who just didn't understand our United States System of Government, particularly the Judicial Branch.

He point blank informed me, "that it is not about truth, honor or justice. It's about what we want to make it about." You see, I had it all wrong. I believed for a good part of my young adult life that the government was about what I was taught in high school. But I was wrong. I have since had about 15 years of post graduate political education that clearly demonstrates that the Judicial Branch of the United States Government is about COLD HARD CASH!

Don't believe me. Pick a municipal, county or Supreme Court Justice in Ohio. Then, scan the attorneys that practice consistently in the so-called "random" assignment of cases before that judicial candidate. Next, go to the Secretary of State of Ohio's website: http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/portal/page?_pageid=34,56478,34_56508&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Make sure you allow yourself some time because you need to search, search, and search some more. The best place to start is on the "Candidates Committee" tab and select the "Contributions to Candidates." Open that up and just plug in your attorneys last name and see who and how much they contributed to your sitting judge.

Don't stop there, you know there are pacs and such. Places where attorneys can contribute to their own pacs and then make second, etc. donations to the judicial candidates. Sometimes, candidates and attorneys run for offices they know they have no hope of winning, and some don't even want the offices, but this candidacy allows them to accept legally campaign contributions that they get to keep if they don't spend it, as a reward for, perhaps possibly throwing a case in someone's favor or allowing them to use the funds for a different race.

Next go to the "PoliticalAction Committee/PCE" tab and open the line that says "Contributions to PACs and PCEs." Again, plug in your attorneys name and see what comes up. Don't ignore same or different addresses. When you get to the year, open each year up in a different window. Then open up the contributions, the other income, the expenditures and in-kind contributions, etc., making sure to copy what is relevant. In many instances, their wives (that don't work) and employees, make large donations to their PACs and PCEs and then make separate donations to the candidates. Sometimes they use multiple office and house addresses.

If you are real industrious, start searching the other states for your attorneys operations and their political donations from out of state. In some instances, they leave off a letter or two of their name, like Kelsey to Kelsy or similar such listings. You have to be determined, but when corruption exists and you don't understand why or how you just got screwed in court, FOLLOW THE MONEY!

These donations often total thousands of dollars. The Judges and Justices of the Courts of Ohio want the citizens of Ohio to believe that these donations mean nothing to them and don't influence their decisions. The very donations that buy them their next job and feed their families. They want you to believe that they are above human nature and can sit in judgment of these cases that they have a conflict of interest in.

Few bother to recuse themselves, because after all these TURDS and the TURDS they serve have sold their souls and could care less about the appearances of improprieties and the Code of Professional Responsibility that they swear to uphold when they receive their license to operate. They operate in Ohio with impunity, because they hide under a cloud of "CONFIDENTIALITY" under the Ohio Disciplinary Counsel, which is just more of the same. The Appearance of Integrity is more important than the TRUTH! It is a quid pro quo environment that polices itself with the same lack of integrity that Nixon and his staff exhibited.

The corruption in the State of Ohio knows no political party. It occurs on both sides of the aisle and is most only called into question when someone from outside the state who has even more money is offended or when the offending party fails to play the game the way it is set up and makes them self a target for the wealthy and politically powerful. Some may say that these Turds are the exception rather than the rule. It is not to say there are not some very decent and honorable attorneys and justices, but do your own searches and make up your own mind.

The real question is whether President Obama through the United States Justice Department can receive the enema of change and flush out these TURDS before our government is bankrupt and hold these offending parties accountable.

Let's see if OUR ENEMA OF CHANGE CAN FLUSH OUR SEA OF CORRUPTION through a filter of the United States Justice Department and flush out those TURDS so that real change can occur leaving a SEA OF REAL INTEGRITY. Now here is a health care plan.

*All statistics are taken from the United States Department of Justice's Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the Public Integrity Section for 2006.

NEXT WEEK: We will see how this one goes! ?

WHAT IF GOD CAME BACK AS DISABLED!

Would You Recognize Him?

Today, everyone is talking about the remark that President Obama made on Jay Leno's Tonight Show last night, Thursday, March 19, 2009. President Obama in a momentary lapse of judgment made a remark that his bowling skill was to be compared to the Special Olympics. I can't pretend that the remark was not disappointing. It was. However, the remark pales in comparison to the discrimination and disparate treatment suffered on a daily basis by this nation's population of Differently Abled!

As a parent of a special needs adult daughter, who happens to be Deaf, Visually Impaired, and Mentally Challenged, along with some other minor ailments, I can tell you from flat out experience, that the population of the Differently Abled have been the target of far worse abuses than the President's remark.

Far too many are forced onto the Medicaid and Supplemental Social Security roles because far too few want to be in their presence. They suffer from rationed health care and, some states, imposed a CO-payment on their prescription drugs while they live on less than $700 per month and most live on less than that. With their meager incomes or food stamps, they are forced to buy food that is less than nutritious and, for the most part, have no allowance for luxury items like toilet paper, soap or sanitary napkins and often are forced to choose between food and prescriptions. They are continually the victim of abuses and scams by, not only the private sector, but the systems of different governments internationally. They are looked upon as leaches off the financial system of most governments, while their abilities and contributions are either ignored or not valued at all.

We spend far too much money creating programs that provide jobs for politicians' friends and relatives off the backs of the Differently Abled. We provide workshops that pay them $65 per month in Ohio, and, then, the staff spends the day selling them back snacks and soda pop to take their $65 back to the state at $1.10 a can of pop and a $1.00 a candy bar. These programs do little to enrich or improve their lives and are nothing more than baby sitting services, with wild stories of events that go unreported in the interest of the state.

I announced the column topic last week prior to the President's remark based on the experiences that my daughter and others like her encounter on a daily basis that causes people, both sympathetic to the unsympathetic, to literally run away in fear when they encounter someone with such severe challenges. Each time it occurs, my heart breaks for her. And the place it occurs most is the very place it should occur the least: church, where she really loves to be.

It is not that most people intend to be rude or mean (some do), it is more that they are out of their comfort zone than anything else. Others can't be bothered, and still others are repulsed by her presence. I always sit back in amazement that no matter how she is treated, she always welcomes people into her life with a smile and, more often than not, a hug. When people are downright rude or mean to her, I stand back in awe in her ability to forgive, again ready to welcome that person in her life.

There are some well intentioned people that struggle to include her in their life activities, but they are few and far between, and I'm always grateful and thankful that they at least tried. They are more the exception than the rule.

So as long as people are uncomfortable with the Differently Abled and continue to under employ them and force them onto public benefits with all the same wants and desire that you yourself possess, they deserve a living wage benefit, not a program that pays someone else to benefit off of them.

Don't be too hard on President Obama for his momentary lapse in judgment. President Obama and his wife Michelle have spent a lifetime working on behalf of the poverty stricken elderly and disabled or Differently Abled and have done more on their behalf than Sarah Palin or the Republicans have ever done. It was the Republicans that convinced America that the people on Medicaid and Supplemental Social Security Income were lazy and just didn't want to work.

For the most part, the Differently Abled were forced onto these roles and live on a fraction of poverty and are unable to find a job, while the masses convince themselves with myths that they get everything supplied by the government. I'm here to tell you it is not true and that most are left struggling for survival and suffer horribly at the hands of society. Their families are punished a life time for these disabilities as their resources are re-allocated without due process of law to provide reduced benefits, and, far too often, these benefits are politically doled out.

Is this the way you would treat God? For those that have faith, didn't he say what you do for the least of those you do for me! For those that don't believe in God, is this the society that you want to live in? A society where greed and legal trickery rules the day while truth and justice are laid to rest? Remember, there for the grace of God go I.

You are an accident away from being Differently Abled! President Obama, we forgive you! Now help us!

Next Week: Lost Cost Premium Insurance with High Deductibles is NO INSURANCE AT ALL!

LIVING WITHIN YOUR BUDGET

DOES THE SYSTEM REALLY WANT OR ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT?

These days, we hear plenty about budgets. The President's Budget, the Congressional Budget, the State Budget, the Municipal Budget and, yes, your budget. We hear screams from the right side of the aisle saying, you the citizen, should live within your budget. If you are struggling, these days, many on the right believe that it is your fault. You were somehow irresponsible with your money, spending it frivolously, or perhaps purchasing things from the many wealthy business owners on the right that kept telling you that you needed to buy their merchandise and on "CREDIT." Almost daily, you hear someone say we need to get the credit markets flowing again. This week, I want to examine the full possibility of those accusations.

Let's take the young man or woman, who is married, and two children. For the purposes of this study, we will have one worker, while the other stays home and attends to their children. If he or she is working, one (usually she) is statistically making less than the counterpart, and they have to spend almost what the second partner makes on extra clothing, child care expenses, and, don't forget that extra tax bracket; reducing that second income to almost nothing.

Let's say that we have an average factory worker (nonunion) or, Walmart, McDonald's, or Burger King worker making an average of $12.00 per hour. That figure in some of these instances is high. Most of these workers struggle with less. Now on a 40 hour week, 52 weeks per year, this worker would earn approximately $24,960.00 (just enough to put him or her above the poverty level to make them ineligible for government benefits, but not enough to get ahead. Now out of the $2,080.00 per month, the Federal Tax (Income and Social Security 15%), State Taxes (15%), and local tax (municipal 2%) on this income is approximately $672.00 leaving them with a net income of $1,408.00 for a family of four.

Next, you hear about this family of four living beyond their means. Well, let's examine that.

According to the Ohio Administrative Code 5101:4-5-01, last amended October 1, 2008, the average family of four is allotted a maximum food stamp allowance of $584.00 for an entire month. And, if many of you reading this are honest, you have to spend much more than this to eat healthy. This amount buys pasta, pasta, pasta. This leaves approximately $824.00 left.

Now with that remaining $824.00, we have to pay rent.

According to the 2009 HUD Fair Market Value Statistics for the Cuyahoga County area of Ohio, the average and fair market value rent for a two bedroom structure is $694.00 ($740.00 for Franklin County, Ohio). There are those out there that would say, you can find places to rent less than that. Places they would not live themselves and places where the crime statistics are altered daily. Now you are left with $130.00 to pay for your heating costs, electrical costs, phone costs, bus passes or car expenses, household goods insurance, state mandated car insurance, medical insurance premium, USE tax (sales tax), medical Co-pays (many can't even afford to use their health insurance after paying for it), dental care, life insurance premiums, used clothing, and so on. Many would say you need to take on a second job to make ends meet and many do take on second jobs, along with increased taxes, increased child care expenses, increased work expenses and, God forbid, an emergency occurs. There is no possibility to put away enough money for most emergencies, hence high interest, easy available credit cards. You now have been forced into a credit situation.

Wages have been stagnant by design for three decades. Between the United States Labor Department and the Federal Reserve, this was all engineered and planned. All the while over the last eight years, gasoline prices increased and that made prices increase on everything from milk to every product you buy, including utilities. Don't you remember George Bush, Sr. saying less is more, all the while he and his wealthy friends got more and more. You were suppose to be at home enjoying more family time on less resources. Don't listen to what he says, watch what he did and does! More is more. And what about Barbara Bush, after Katrina, standing in the middle of the Houston Astrodome and stating, "It's not like they're not use to being poor," referring to the Katrina victims. While Barbara Bush is recovering from heart surgery, at least she, personally, could afford the insurance paid for on the backs of the tax payer and afford the insurance co-payments, subsidized by her tax payer supported pension. I suppose with her reasoning, she would state it is not like the poor are not use to eating the lower cost pasta, at least they are not starving (maybe developing more heart disease and getting obese, but hey, they are not starving). I suppose with her reasoning, she would state that it is not like the poor are not use to being unhealthy and sick (We, the wealthy have made sure of that).

Don't forget it is the wealthy that look down their noses at the poor and think that people that have to file bankruptcy are somehow less hardworking or less than intelligent because they didn't have any health insurance, or car insurance, or life insurance (didn't they know they were going to die while they were struggling to live), all the while they knowingly paid them barely enough to exist upon while they got wealthy off the backs of other people.

Recently, I had a middle class secretary state to me that it was right to pay people that worked at fast food restaurants or department stores a lower wage because, after all, these were never meant to be jobs for adults to live on, just jobs to subsidize some kids' pay check. Ms. Secretary, the next time you are in Walmart, Kmart, Burger King, McDonald's, etc. look around at the workforce. These are the jobs many adults are forced to survive on. Thank God Ms. Secretary that you still have your job. These are the jobs that move America. All the while the average Burger King worker was being paid $14,000 per year (less than poverty wage), their parent corporation, Goldman Sachs handed out bonuses (BONUSES) to their top corporate executives totaling over $6.5 billion dollars, enough to pay each one of their workers an additional $18,000 per year, all the while many of their employees were forced to have their health care subsidized by the tax payer in the way of Corporate Welfare. The higher we are, the more it hurts when we fall!

The problem really is that the system, after years of corruption and greed, is at its' breaking point. People like Bernie Madoff have been allowed to operate by the wealthy in a climate of quid pro quo (You do for me, and I do for you). The reason Bernie Madoff will have a Plea Bargain or DEAL is because there are so many complicit in his actions, that they don't want him to name names. For $60 billion dollars, I am sure that many politicians, judges, lawyers, etc. benefited from his actions and, therein lies the Plea Bargain. Do they really want you to live within your budget? You have been strategically and economically enslaved by this nation for years. There is always that cardboard box, right?

Next Week: With all the baby boomers retiring, who had the vested interest to allow or engineer the stock markets to crash and insurance companies to fail?