Greetings From the Poor Man

Hello, I am literally a nobody.  I make less than $30,000 per year and am on assistance.  My family consists of 5 children, 1 just out on her own, 2 still in high school.  1 of my high schoolers lives with my exwife in another state, and the other high schooler just started his high school career.  I have another one in the 4th grade and one more that is not old enough for school.  The reason that I want you to know this is because my views are more in line with someone who may be more affluent.

I was raised in several cities in Florida, went to 4 different elementary schools, only 1 middle school, and 2 high schools.  My parents, which divorced when I was 2, have both remarried 2 and 3 more times respectively.  My father opened up his own business and now struggles with diabetes and no insurance.  My mother married a salesman that bought into a business and is now more affluent.

So as you can see, I probably take after my father more than my mother.  At 40 I am hoping that in the next 10 years I can work out all my money issues and finally be able to actually SUPPORT my family.  At one point I was considered a dead beat dad.  I have owed as much as $25,000 in back child support.  The great thing is that I will be caught up completely by the end of his high school career.  As with many other people, I am in debt and struggling to keep up with everything.  There was a time when my mother didn't want to get a call from me because I was probably going to ask for help financially.  She was right!  I had to cut ties for a while so that I didn't have that option.  Now I know that I can call her and have a real conversation and if I really need help, fix it myself!

This is just a brief view of who I am.  I know that I am not alone and I know that I am not the only one with my views.  I just needed a place to vent my thoughts and maybe even have some great dialogue with some great people.

So I see today that Gallop has a pole out called "Americans' Perception of Governmental Power."  In this pole Gallop show that since 2002 Republicans, Democrats and Independents perceive the Governments power differently.  What a shock eh!  Who ever is in power, whether it is Republicans or Democrats, the other party thinks the government has too much power.  However between 2002 and 2009 the two parties averaged only 11 percentage points difference in their views.  So only a small percentage of more Democrats thought the government had too much power.  Lets switch to after 2009 to 2013 the average flips dramatically.  The Republicans and to a little less degree the Independents average a 46 percentage point difference.  So what does this mean to me?  Well lets look at the Independents, they had the same views from 2002 - 2009 as the democrats.  Now they are more in line with the Republicans.  To me the Independents are a group of self made people who don't see perfectly eye to eye with either group.  The are not sellouts and are not afraid to stand up and vote what they actually feel is best.  Now if this group feels this strongly about the power shift of the government then there probably is an actual issue.  Even though their percentage has only increased about 10 percent, the disparity between what was and what is now is just too great to ignore.

The government as a whole, the Republicans and Democrats, have not proven lately that they are actually voting for anyone except themselves.  Either they vote to keep the status quo or they vote to stop it.  My biggest question is, how do you vote with out actually knowing what you are really voting for?  In the case of the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare", how can you vote without actually reading what isn't written?  I am all for the representatives of this great nation voting for something they feel will help the country as a whole, however an educated person doesn't vote for something they don't actually understand.  This is where the disparity between parties really is.  A man creates an idea for a better way to give health care so that the people he has worked with in the inner city can get health care.  I get it!  However, he didn't have the whole thing written when it went to the floor to get voted into law.  Now you have many people losing hours at work and many being laid off because the representatives voted for something that they never understood.  At some companies who provide health care for their par-time associates, they will have to no longer offer it and send those associates to the exchanges.  So now you have people that can't get hours and can't get health care through their employers have to go to health care system that no one has any idea how it is going to work.  The exchanges are minimizing the amount of doctors allowed to be used so they can decrease the costs of health care.  What will this mean?  Is it going to be days or weeks to seen?  What is the quality going to be like?  How much will it be?  Will there be any breaks for healthy people?  Will the government make sure that families with drug dependency not be covered?  That would only be fair because someone who has never taken any drugs shouldn't be burdened with someone else's personal choices.  That can go for smoking also.  Second hand smoke is one thing, but if you choose to smoke or take illegal substances you should pay for your own choices.

So this is my first line of thought.  I have to go and get ready for my work day, let me know what you think.