Mr.& Mrs. Sixpack were married in 1998. Joe had a decent job earning $35,000.00 to 38,000.00 per year with health insurance. They bought their first home in 1999 after renting for 3 years . By the year 2001, they had 2 children and Joe was earning $40,000.00 per year and his healthcare costs was $180.00 per month for his family of four. They had a one used car and one new car. Joe and his family were living the American Dream. Then came 9/11/01. A great Disaster! Six months later Joe's company went out of bussiness and Joe was out of a job. Joe's wife got a fultime job earning $9.00.00 per hour, Joe got a partime job and went to school for Heating and Cooling. Credit cards were to the limits, from being unemployed and not making as much as they were accustomed to. Things were tight for Joe and his wife, with child care expenses, house payment, car payment, health care insurance through his wife's work which was now costing Joe and his family $220.00 per month. In 2003 Joe was working full time in Heating And Cooling earning only $28,000.00 per year and was still playing catch up from their losses in 2001. Thet decided to try to refinance their home. Joe knows about heating and cooling but not about the mortgage bussiness. Joe's mortgage broker tells Joe his payments would be cheaper with a (ARM) ajustable rate mortgage and he could have the whole $30,000.00 equity in his home, along with his payment being tax deductible. Mr. & Mrs. Sixpack knew they needed the money to get out of their credit crunch. They got the loan, thinking they got a good deal, they paid off 10,000.00 of credit cards bills and another bills to get even. They took the family to Disney World and spent $3,000.00. Joe traded his used truck and put $ 10,000.00 with that to get another newer used truck because Joe knew that he couldn't afford another car payment. The remaining $7,000.00 Joe and his family used up for eating out and kids activities over a period of 2 years. Now comes 2008 Joe is earning $30,000.00 per year, his wife is only up to 10.00 per hour. Joe's health care costs for his family of four is now $460.00 per month, their gas to go to work has doubled. Joe's mortgage has went up over $200.00 per month. Joe and his family are struggling to make ends meet, his 401K has went down to where the employers contributions are gone plus some of Joe's money that he contributed. How is the BAILOUT going to help Joe and his family. His credit is at its limits. He is just happy to be barely making it, after knowing how many others got laid off and are losing their homes and what not. Joe does not care about the bailout because it is not helping him at all. However Joe's boss is saying the credit crunch is keeping him from buying more parts and making payments on his trucks and keeping the business going. The bosses business has went down due to no new constuction in the housing industry. His boss needs the credit because he believed that WHY USE HIS MONEY, WHEN HE CAN USE THE BANKS MONEY. His boss didn't keep alot of cash reserve, instead he bought a new boat, new home with inground pool, 2 news cars for him and his wife. Now the boss is struggling. the bailout will help the boss get his credit line back and to stay in bussiness a little longer, hoping the economy will come back soon and new homes will start to be built. The only benefit for Joe is that he will have a job a little longer. No one knows if the BAILOUT will work, not even Joe. Joe and his family will just keep trying to pay their bills, hopefully until the car is paid off, and then use that money to pay off the credits cards. The BAILOUT however will help the rich people who are not efffected by gas prices, healthcare costs. The rich will breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the government will secure their assets. Joe Sixpack is also going to have to pay more taxes in the near future to help pay for this bailout. Joe also believes that the media is partly to blame for trying to scare everyone about the economy being so bad. The more negative they are the more negative we become. So where does the BAILOUT leave Joe Sixpack, in the same shape his family was in before the BAILOUT. Only now, Joe with all of ths stress has upgraded to a twelve pack. Joe feels that the politicions who helped create this crisis and are voting on this process do not understand the economy because they do not pay for gas or health care, and that most of the taxpayers earn less than $60,000.00 per year and are not benefiting from this bailout.. The Politicions have not been working for the American people, but for the lobbiest who donated to their campaign. Joe stares at a dollar bill that he pulled from his wallet, he reads the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" and Joe knows that with faith, comes hope, and no matter what happens, or where he lives, or how poor he may or may not become, his faith will keep him sane,and Joe will never give up hope. He realizes that things could be worse for his family, as is for so many others and he hopes their faith is as strong as his. This was the story of a middle class American who is being hurt by the politicions and the greedy rich. Is it to far off from the real story????
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ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
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Some examples:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
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Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report
Get rid of the negative speaking Julie Newman, she is almost always wrong and very negative. Quit telling when gas prices raise, because the owners of the service stations do not normally know when gas prices raise until you tell them!!!
