To: PROLIFE who wrote (465450 ) 9/26/2003 2:45:07 PM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to <font color=red>Here's some truth for you!<font color=black>Rich people will hate this column. But I have to be honest about this. When people ask me if I am better off now than I was before George W. Bush became president, the answer is much better off; in fact, it is "so much better off that it doesn't seem right to me, given what I see happening in the country." It is more of a sense of helplessness. I keep reading that our schools stink, our military is under-equipped -- 40,000 guys without Kevlar in a shooting gallery? -- and our ports and subways and malls aren't any safer than they were on Sept. 10, 2001. I always have believed in progressive taxes, in part because I always have thought, what the heck, I benefited from the system so the system should make me pay. Now I feel that I am benefiting from the defense effort, but my kids will have to pay for it. For the life of me, I can't figure out why my taxes are going down so sharply yet most of the people I know -- and I know lots of people who aren't rich --seem to be doing really terribly unless they sell their houses, realize the gain and move elsewhere. Few people I know seem heartened by the stock market's good gains this year because few I know participated -- and I know a lot of people, thousands of them! I know that I should just shut up about it and reap the big-time benefits that the Republicans are throwing my way. If I don't need the money, I can give it to charity -- which I assure you, I do, in spades. But as a history student, knowing what happens when you have guns and butter -- or in this case, Iraq bills and farm bills -- things get messed up even if you don't intend it. It is fashionable in this country to be right-wing and populist. Maybe I am feeling out of fashion with all the tax breaks thrown my way. and I still have no doubt he will be re-elected, because these candidates aren't sharp enough to beat him yet -- has to do with the fact that I think I am one of a couple of thousand people who are not only better off than we were before Bush started, but much, much better off. Not only am I not being asked to sacrifice, I am being given the hi-sign to party down, 'cause this president just wants me to be even richer than I am! I guess he's my guy!
