Parents

Because conservatives have targeted unions, and been stingy with minimum wage rates, both parents have to work just to keep a roof over the heads of their children, and to put food on the table. We are exhausted, and not able to spend the time we could with our kids if only we weren’t having to struggle to pay basic bills.

Teachers

Because parents don’t have as much time to spend with their kids due to keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table, teachers have to spend more class time dealing with students with behavioral issues, and less time teaching our kids to read, write, add and subtract.

Firemen

How many fires happen every year because of wiring that is not up to code? How many fires happen because people are burning candles because they didn’t have enough money to pay the electric bill on top of buying food and paying rent? How many people die because of lax regulations, or lack of budget money to pay for inspection?

Policemen

Our law enforcement officers do not have enough money to have 2 officers to patrol. When you call the police in Oakland, CA because the stereo got stolen out of your car (for the 3rd, 4th 5th time), they tell you an officer is not available, and report it online. The police do not patrol some areas, not because they are too dangerous, but because there are not enough personnel for them to even drive through once a day. Cops end up arresting people for committing crimes stemming from untreated mental illnesses or untreated drug abuse. If we had universal health care and available jobs, fewer people would be forced to steal to survive, or deal drugs to feed their kids, or have mental health treatment so that their illnesses don’t get so out of control that they do something that puts them in jail. The poor man who had multiple health problems who robbed a bank of ONE DOLLAR in order to receive medical treatment is an ATROCITY that should never happen in America.

Doctors/Nurses

In emergency rooms across this country, doctors and nurses watch people die from diseases that could have been treated if the patient had been able to afford a visit to the doctor years before. Doctors and nurses treat patients at emergency rooms for illnesses such as ear infections and bronchitis or pneumonia that could have been treated by a family doctor, but have gotten so bad they seek emergency room care – because they don’t have a family doctor; they don’t have money to pay insurance premiums, so they don’t have health care. What would have cost less than $100 to treat in a doctor’s office costs about 5 times as much to be treated in the emergency room. It costs much less to provide healthcare to our citizens than it does to treat an out of control illness in an emergency room.

Your idea of lowering taxes on the wealthy and corporations has not resulted in plentiful jobs. As soon as the Bush tax cuts were enacted, the government had to borrow money to pay for them.

10 years of low taxes is enough. The corporations and the wealthy have not chosen to shower us with enough jobs to ensure that people can work. They certainly aren’t paying a living wage to those lucky enough to have a job. We are aware that you are lying. Not mistaken – LYING. You know that lower taxes creates suffering for the millions at the bottom, and millions in dollars for the few at the top. The American people (not the ones you actually represent, which are the corporate persons and the 400 wealthy families), but the ones at the bottom – maybe you recognize them better as those votes you count every other year in November – are hurting and suffering so that billionaires can have a few more dollars.

How dare you say that Social Security is bankrupting our country? WE, THE PEOPLE, pay into it. It’s our MONEY. We know that the Social Security fund is actually raided by the Congress to pay for wars and other things the American people don’t want. That is why you don’t want beneficiaries to have more. Because it cuts into your slush fund.

The American People (again, those votes you count, not the corporate persons and the 400 wealthy) just want basics:

Jobs. Jobs are not a “handout”. If you are going to insist that the corporate persons and the 400 wealthy are “job creators”, make them create jobs in order to get their tax breaks. Don’t give them the tax break and then shrug when they can’t be bothered to create living wage jobs. Hint: a “living wage” is more than $7.25 an hour. It’s enough to support a family. With one parent working, so the other can stay home when the kids are young. We want the choice to join a union; we want our union to represent us when bargaining for cost of living/wage increases, and benefits. We want a union to stand for us against corporate interests that will sacrifice safety in the name of a dollar more in profits. The unions benefit every worker. Little known secret – when union contracts are negotiated and ratified, the low level management generally gets the same wage/benefits as the unionized workers do (in a well established, functional union).

Healthcare. Ensure that every American citizen (those votes you count) can see a doctor and get medicine without having to choose between that and paying rent and buying food and paying for electricity. Guess what – if there was universal health care, American companies would be much more competitive in the global market.

Education. The American people want a quality education paid for by our taxes. We want our kids to learn reading, literature, science, math, history, CIVCS, music, sports, and world cultures. We don’t want our tax dollars to go to private schools that want to teach religion. I have taught my kids about religion. I do not want my kids to be taught YOUR religion, especially not on my dime, and with no other choices because there are no public schools.

Dignity. Our elderly, who worked to make our country great, our poor, who struggle to give better to the next generation, our sick who need help to survive – we want dignity for them. No punitive drug testing for benefits. No demonizing unemployed people as “lazy”.

I do not see the wealthy/corporations ensuring any of the above, even with all their resources. They are not required to do so – unless we have a functioning government of the people, by the people, and for the people, to balance our needs with theirs.

No corporation builds roads, dams, bridges, sewer systems, or other infrastructure on their own. They do it when our functioning rational government says that we need it done, and we have set aside money to pay a company with a reasonable bid to do this. This infrastructure investment is HOW people get and maintain employment.

We have a 100 year history of strong social programs, infrastructure building and maintenance, good education, all of which creates security and opportunity for ALL of our people.

When the first Great Depression happened (yes, I’m saying First, because I am sure there will be a Second if we do not get the hostage takers out of our government), we as a nation did not know what to do about it.

But we know what worked to get us out of the First Great Depression, and what has worked since. And we know what has not worked. We need to employ those things that worked, and start repealing the things that do not work (tax cuts). FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson collectively strengthened our nation by strengthening our people. And by being rational and compassionate in their legislation. They may have done some things that didn’t work, but overall, history shows that most of their plans and programs made our country the greatest on earth. We have a roadmap – we have only to follow it. It is up to each American to hold their representatives at all levels to account. It is up to every one of us to vote, even when we are discouraged or demoralized or unmotivated.

The 112th Congress certainly shows the kinds of decisions that have been made by those who didn’t show up in 2010. NO election is unimportant.

