Curmudgeon Corner

My Rooney Thoughts for October 3rd, 2014

            (Well, I’m back.  Took some time off to complete a book of short stories and published it on Amazon.  In case you would like to read it, the title is Shadows In Our Lives: A Collection of Short Stories.  It is available at Amazon.com and I used my pen name Thomas William Irons.  Buy it today, while it’s still on sale.)

            I don’t know about all you good folks but as a curmudgeon I feel our government is doing little or nothing to help our middle class.  They (meaning the government) keep telling us our economy is doing modestly well.  Each month shows growth in corporate profits, banks are reporting record incomes, and the stock market is plunging ahead.

            That’s great news . . . unless, of course, you’re in the 57% of our populations that feel our incomes are not increasing at all.  The PEW Research Center found a majority of our citizens feel their income lags far behind the cost of living, which mine is, and the government is doing nothing to improve the situation.

            Just recently, Pacific Power in my area of the country (Northwest) is asking for an 11% increase in their rates for all customers.  Additionally, the local natural gas company is asking a 5% increase.  This request comes on the heels of increases the last two years.  I have'nt seen a raise, have you? Where’s the working man raise? 

            In the last 12 years, for a family of four, child care costs have rocketed upward by 37%.  In Seattle, there is a day care center that cost over $10,000 a   year. It’s enough to make you buy condoms.  Or, maybe just give up sex.  Food prices are up by double digits for the same time frame and health care is up almost a hundred percent from 2002.   

            Each year the income gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” continues to grow.  And what has our government done about it? Nothing!

            Our government, namely our Congress, has become almost as dysfunctional as our Secret Service.  Right now is not a good time to be President or a working man.  Both are being threatened with extinction.