Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Are we better off?

I just sent the following letter to the editor to the Durham Herald-Sun - I'll let you know if it sees print.
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In 1980, Americans were asked whether they were better off than they'd been four years earlier. We looked around at high gas prices, Middle Eastern-based terrorism, prices rising faster than wages, job uncertainty, skyrocketing national deficits and enough people answered no that Jimmy Carter became a one-term president.

The same question should be asked today and I for one can tell you that as I see friends and former coworkers who have been out of work or greatly underemployed for two years now, as I look at the hold that terrorists have gained on our national psyche, as I watch the folks at the gas station raising the prices on the sign out front multiple times a day and as I watch wages going nowhere fast while my future is mortgaged against the biggest budget deficit in history, my answer is clearly no. I feel less secure in my job, I feel less secure in my family's safety and I feel less secure in my future and my ability to retire at some point and enjoy it.

Will this inform my vote for President this fall? You betcha - clearly the precedent has been set. We need to make George W Bush a one-term president.

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