Whats In Your Wallet?
Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 08:50AM Often on my daily commute lively conversations occur from sports (not often about the court jester athletes on you TV set) to economics. Since the mid-term elections are closing in on us this was the topic on Friday. Joining our circle were a few Obamaholics and the recent voter types that never thought about politics until Barack Obama became the headliner in the last national election.
Of course, the main point many were making was the importance of getting out to vote in this election since the Democrats could lose the House and the Senate, the Tea Party seemingly had a strong influence on the previous primary elections and appear not only to be pushing towards a Republican resurgence but, far right almost fanatical right Republican surge. I'm sure you can ascertain the majority of the voices on the commuter train were Democrat. Not all of us claim such, but most do. The call by president Obama is certainly being repeated by my Democrat train compadres. But, the voice of one of the recent voter types, who finally paid attention to politics, spoke up and posed a question as to why she should be interested on the upcoming vote.
Her concern centered around healthcare. Or more precisely the affects of the Obama Healthcare reform bill that passed. On her job they were notified that their healthcare premiums would be increasing. She would go from paying approximately ninety dollars per paycheck to around 145 dollars every two weeks. She expressed her concern since this would cut deeper into her pay and leave her less to work with. She is a divorced mother of three receiving virtually no support from her ex-husband. "When the Republicans are in office I get hurt, the Democrats are in office and here again I get hurt. So, why should I run to the polls to vote for either since they both hurt me?" She voted for the current president for change she said, but this is not the change she envisioned. How do we help this sister to see her way to vote in November when what she sees in her wallet will be a lot less?