The Big Question

Inevitably, during all the bloviation and rhetoric,  someone asks "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

Answer:  Hmmn

Four years ago I had a good job at good wages.   My mutual funds were at an all time high.      My daughter had just given birth to my first grandchild.    When I went to the airport, my biggest fear was losing my suitcase.  There was no such thing as "Threat Level."      Life was pretty good.


Today,  my family income is less than half what it was in 2000.  For the past year, I have been fruitlessly looking for a job in an economic environment that stubbornly favors cost-control over growth.     We are afraid to fly - heck we are even afraid drive to the airport.  The cost of a gallon of gas has skyrocketed.   The stock market goes apeshit everytime there is a suicide bombing in the news.  Most of the robber CEO's walk free as crows, but Martha Stewart has been convicted of crimes against humanity and is headed for jail.    My grandchildren moved to California.

Democrats are still talking about "stolen" elections and "coo-day-tat", as if they did not understand the Electoral College.   Republicans - with no evil empire to oppose - bark about moral principles, and the evils of those who would deny tax cuts to the richest Americans. 
Neither party can produce a leader that the majority of voters can rally around enthusiastically.  Most voters support their guy mainly because they are afraid of the other guy.

Read:  Afraid of the other guy's Supreme Court appointees.   

Republicans  - in the ultimate cynical strategy - contribute to Ralph Nader's impotent and vain attempts to become a real candidate, in hopes of spoiling Kerry's draw on independent voters.   Nader, once seen as a principled struggler against special interests is now seen as a sad buffoon.

Our confidence in the System is shaken.  We now know that the past two Presidents have been making military decisions based on flawed intelligence data about terrorists.   Political debate has devolved to mere shouting matches and mudslinging.  We seek for the truth in vain.  (Maybe Cheney is right - we can't handle the truth).

Are we better off than we were four years ago?  Perhaps the key question is, will we be better off  or worse following the election in November?   

Hmmmn.