by Tom Blair
Columnist

This is nothing about politics, just some reality we need to look at. Just think about this for a moment; According to a special report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months, and that is the largest increase that we have ever seen since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.

Not only that, median household income has once again fallen. In case you are keeping track, that makes three years in a row. It is not because of a president, a congress, a governor or any one entity. It’s the entire corrupt political system that is letting us down. I think most are looking out for their own interests. Large salaries, huge benefits and health care. Perks of all kinds plus fat retirement money.

It’s kind of like what some people believe. That paying teachers big money makes better students. There is no correlation between high paying teachers and well-educated kids. Some of the best teachers in the world don’t make a lot of money.

In the past there were a lot of well meaning, honest and hard working political representatives in our high government offices who dedicated themselves to SERVING the people and at a modest salary.

I believe that part of the reason there is so much unemployment is because people in business are scared to death of the economy. They are wondering, what is going to happen next? What is it going to cost me to furnish health care for employees, what are the taxes going to be and how’s the economy going to affect my company’s sales in the future? Maybe I better not expand and hire more people huh?

One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program. 10 million Americans now receive unemployment benefits. That number is almost four times larger than it was back in 2007. We now have more than 45 million Americans on food stamps. The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007 and more than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid.

Can you imagine this? Approximately one-third of the entire population of Alabama is now on food stamps and this stuff is going to get worse. We Americans are going to spend somewhere around $491 BILLION dollars on gasoline this year and all this is for the wealth of a few, on the backs of the common folks.

Yes, we are poor and our government continues to spend money like drunken idiots and we help countries we never heard of and other countries that hate us. We spend billions and billions of dollars on things we call “conflicts” but sure look like wars to most of us. But, we continue to elect people who do NOT make our country better.

Our Federal government chooses to ignore illegal immigrants piling in to our country. We then feed, educate, give them heath care and house them in the name of immigration while the declining American work force pays for it. Yes, even our legal, hard working immigrants are paying too.

While there is more unemployment, poverty, rising prices, crime and war, Americans suffer while the fat politicians continue to get healthy cost of living increases and continue wasteful spending. How can anyone say we are better off now?

Tom “Road” Blair

Road742@aol.com

Website: www.tomroadblair.com