Thread: As John Q. Public is whacked about the head and shoulders

Sun, Aug. 26, 2007

Opinion

As John Q. Public is whacked about the head and shoulders
By Jim Wright
Special to the Star-Telegram

America's low- and middle-income families are taking a financial drubbing, and the White House is in deep denial, obsessed with other matters. There is little evidence that anyone in the executive branch is aware of, let alone concerned about, the combination of punishing developments continually battering working families from all directions:

At a time when remunerative employment more than ever demands educational skills, the new school year brings parents of college-age youths shocking news of tuition increases -- up by 15 to 34 percent across the country. There are big hikes even at state and public universities, the frequent study habitats for youth of modest-to-moderate financial means.

More and more, young people are being forced to skip college or take big college loans that they'll be repaying into their 40s.

Home foreclosures, many driven by rising interest rates, have spread to epidemic proportions. Gimmicky loan deals, some featuring "adjustable" interest rates and others advertising themselves as "home equity" and "sub-prime" accounts, have lured uncounted numbers into seductive borrowings that, in the first half of 2007, have cost a half million American families their homes -- an increase of 93 percent over the previous year.

Burgeoning credit card debt has gouged many millions of dollars from low- to middle-income Americans in unadvertised interest rate increases and "late charges." These unexpected fillips have caught millions of not-so-careful borrowers by costly surprise.

In this case, the unexpected extra charges were specifically authorized by a law sneaked through in the previous Congress while unwary citizens slept. That law expressly allows credit card companies to raise interest and late fees to usurious levels on existing loans without the knowledge or permission of the borrower. Some punitive interest levels have been running as high as 20 percent of the delinquent amounts.

The North American Free Trade Agreement and other recent pacts have been used to lower wages globally and to export American jobs to low-wage countries like India and China. Trade has become a "race to the bottom" in wages, costing our country multiple thousands of jobs.

Last week, as President Bush met in Canada with heads of the Mexican and Canadian governments to discuss new trade policies, hundreds of Canadians gathered on the streets outside to protest. Their main bone of contention: These agreements have been lowering fair wages and doing away with U.S. and Canadian labor standards by exporting jobs to other countries. A specific complaint: the three heads of state were meeting privately with presidents and CEOs of large multinational corporations (who represented the interest of employers) but had no dialogue or conversation whatever scheduled with anyone representing the interests of workers.

Meanwhile, the protesters insist with apparent justification, trade and immigration policies are lowering wages in the United States and Canada.

The soaring price of energy is raising living costs for American consumers, thus lowering living standards for all those on fixed incomes. Everyone can figure the effect on the pocketbook in the price of each tank of gasoline at the pump.

But most have not figured the upward effect of higher energy prices, and company-friendly enforcement, on their home utility bills. Or in our local grocery stores, where we buy fresh fruit, meat and vegetables from as far away as Australia. The fuel costs for transporting these goods by air over such distances are bound to exact a toll on the average consumer's bill.

Bigger than any of this, probably, is the harmful effect of current U.S. tax policy on the average-income American family.

For the past six years, thanks to Bush-sponsored tax cuts, this country has been receiving substantially lower payments from the top 5 percent of high-income earners. That small, elite group has reaped a tax cut boon measured in the billions. A larger percent of the burden, thus, is shifted to middle- and lower-income taxpayers.

In addition, government isn't paying our nation's bills, and some generation will have to pay off the $3.3 trillion that we've needlessly added to our national debt in the past seven years.

Congress, reconvening in September, must concentrate on providing an improved understanding of and practical, meaningful help for the majority of ordinary Americans who make up the bulk of our population, and whose hopes for economic justice presently must lie with the legislative branch.

Jim Wright is a former speaker of the U.S. House.
P.O. Box 1413, Fort Worth, TX 76101

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/213690.html

Hey Dixie, how 'ya doin'?

Re:

America's low- and middle-income families are taking a financial drubbing, and the White House is in deep denial, obsessed with other matters

Actually, I'm a bit more cynical on this part. I think Boosh is not ignoring the undermining the std. of living for America's middle and working classes - he is part of the plan to eliminate them. It's not that he doesn't know what is going on - he knows, he just doesn't care.

THIS CAN ALL BE TRACED TO THE ILLEGAL INVASION.

Originally Posted by PhredE

Hey Dixie, how 'ya doin'?

Re:

America's low- and middle-income families are taking a financial drubbing, and the White House is in deep denial, obsessed with other matters

Actually, I'm a bit more cynical on this part. I think Boosh is not ignoring the undermining the std. of living for America's middle and working classes - he is part of the plan to eliminate them. It's not that he doesn't know what is going on - he knows, he just doesn't care.

I'm doing good PHredE! Hope your doing good too!

I know it sounds like Jim is using political speak but that's really Texan for he's a total blind and foolish narcissist. Other matters sounds like the NAU.

You know how us Texans are... The insults sound so nice you don't realize they are what they are.

Dixie