From: alan@auntbea.austin.ibm.com (Alan R. Weiss)
Subject: Re: Taxing & Spending
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 14:47:06 GMT
Organization: (speaking only for myself from Austin, Texas)

In article <1993Jan19.230303.2362@uunet!tellab5!odgate> mike@uunet!tellab5!odgate (Mike J. Kelly) writes:
>alan@auntbea.austin.ibm.com (Alan R. Weiss) writes:
>
>>>The middle class
>>>insists that it is maligned and punished for working (and
>>>forgets that so much of the budget is returned to them in the
>>>form of entitlements like medicare, medicaid, social security
>>>and other budget busting programs).
>
>>I am SO damn tired of hearing this cliche.  I am part of the
>>middle class.  I do not receive medicare, medicaid,
>>I pay INTO social security, and I receive NO benefit from ANY
>>budget busting programs except, perhaps, some benefit from
>>military protective services.  So WHAT, exactly, am I getting
>>for my money??
>
>Have you no parents?  Do they also receive no Social Security
>payments and no Medicare coverage?


Both of my parents work.  After toiling for years in corporations,
they bought a business, turned it around, and are in business for
themselves in Colorado.

Of my wife's parents:  her father died.  I took care of the funeral
situation, including buying the plot.  Her mother lives with us,
in our house.  She's 72 years young.  We take care of our own.

Her father worked 40 years, mostly in the defense industry during
WWII (he was a genuine, rheumatoid 4F :-} as a production expert manager,
doing his part to help win the war.  He worked all his life, up until
the day he dropped dead from a stroke.

Her mother was a school teacher for L.A.U.S.D, where they self-fund
their retirement (a curious situation indeed).  She does not receive
any social security, since they are on a seperate system.  She worked
for 42 years.

Since Medicare covers squat, she has her own private insurance
(Blue Cross).  It covers things nicely.

So, the answer to your question is clearly, "NO."

>Will you never, ever be unemployed?  Wouldn't you like to be able
>to get some kind of medical care if that happened?

Oh please, Mike.  Get real.  I have a wife, three small kids,
a mother-in-law, and a mortgage.  Unemployment insurance can
barely *feed* the family, much less pay the mortgage or anything else.
No one sells private unemployment insurance, either.  If I don't
work, we become street people real fast.  Therefore, I work.

If I get sick, I have health insurance - but only if I stay
employed, and only if I don't get TOO sick - if I get something
really nasty, private insurance can cancel it.  But, I pay my
own way.  Maybe I'm just an old-fashioned sap, but I was taught
that in America, you pull your own freight, hell or high water.

>And, the real point is, do you care about anyone but *you*?
>-- 
>--
>Mike Kelly               Odesta Corporation, Northbrook, Illinois, USA
>...!clout!odgate!mike    - Until odesta.com is registered.
>odgate!mike@clout.uucp   - From the Internet.

The real point is, does ANYONE care about anything except,
"what's in it for me?"  I'm a producer, not a taker.  I believe
that if others were of like mind, we would have a LOT less problems,
a sentiment shared by many people.  I ALSO think that if there
were more producers, that there would be a LOT left over for
private charities, and a LOT more money available for many
other services now being sucked down the rat hole of the deficit and debt.

The real point is also this, Mike:  I do care about others.  I care
so much, that I pay almost 1/2 of my income in taxes in one form
or another (income tax at 33%, sales taxes, city taxes, municipal
utility district taxes, county taxes, school district taxes, etc. etc.

So COOL IT about me not caring!  I'm so bloody caring that I work
over half the year for other people, and have little choice in the matter.

Even still, we donate to charities - United Way, Salvation Army, etc.

Next question.


-- 
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