Are you better off from 4 yrs ago?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Are you better off from 4 yrs ago?
40
Mon, 09-27-2004 - 8:43pm
Here's the orginial link: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prweb159961.php

Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?



On October 28, 1980, in the second presidential debate, Ronald Reagan asked a question that resonated throughout the campaign that year: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?” During this election season, many members of “Republicans for Kerry” are asking themselves the same question.

Hilliard, OH (PRWEB) September 17, 2004 -- Veronica Reynolds, age 80, a registered Republican and a retired local high school secretary, will vote for John Kerry this year. When asked for her reasons, she quotes a question that Reagan asked 24 years ago. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

“Four years ago, I took a wonderful trip to New Zealand,” Reynolds tells RepublicansForKerry04.org, “and now I can no longer afford to travel out of this country. In fact, I have six children, four of whom live in states other than Ohio. It concerns me when I pay for the air fare to visit them.” Like many retired people, Reynolds has suffered a tremendous loss in her retirement savings over the past three years.

Also like many older citizens, Reynolds takes prescription drugs for a medical condition in her case, a chronic pre-cancerous condition for which she takes two tablets three times a day. She opted not to participate in what she called “Bush’s worthless prescription help for Medicare,” however. “I had to laugh, sadly, when the pharmaceutical companies raised their prices,” she says, adding that she was appalled at media reports that Bush’s new plan will reduce her Social Security benefits by 17%, and increase her Medicare premiums in 2005.

At a personal level, Reynolds knows that she is worse off than she was four years ago, but she is even more fearful for the nation if Bush is given four more years in office. “He will continue to destroy our country,” she says, noting that “if we disagree with his policies, we are accused of being un-American or not supporting our troops. Separation of church and state is on its way out. Foolish amendments to the Constitution are on their way in.”

In a neighboring state, 46-year-old Republican Debra Vanderpool, her husband, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, live in Towanda, in northeastern Pennsylvania. Like Reynolds, the Vanderpools are struggling day by day. “We wonder sometimes where we are going to get the money for groceries next week, ” Vanderpool says. “Four years ago, we had less money a month then we had now,” she recalls, “and we were making ends meet. We were getting groceries and paying bills and getting to go out to dinner or a movies once a while. So I ask myself am I better off than I was 4 years ago. Well the answer is no.”

Vanderpool is also concerned that the US entered into the war in Iraq under false pretenses, and believes that has destroyed our relationship with our allies. Our brave soldiers are dying everyday “For what?” she asks. “Many people were for the war because we believed in the existence of the WMD. Bush has lied to the people of this country. There are many reservists and Guard families out there that are about to lose everything because their spouses are out fighting in Iraq…. They and their families are clearly much worse off than they were four years ago.”

[Contact media@republicansforkerry04.org

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 2:00pm
I would be willing to bet that most people are in about the same shape as they were 4 years ago. Of course there are going to be those that are actually better off, and those that are much worse off, but by and far, the largest percentage are going to be roughly in the same position they were in 2000.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2003
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 2:00pm
Am I better off than I was four years ago, that answer shall be no. I will have to agree that the low interest rates reduced my mortgage payment and that I am thankful for. The amazing thing is, although my mortgage was reduced for the past 2yrs., now it is actually higher than it was at 6.5%. My local property taxes were increased greatly in the past 2 years. Now one might ask what does that have to do with the Federal Goverment and here is what I say to that. I believe the link between, local, state and Federal taxes all concide with each other. I do believe The President's tax cut bill has decreased the amount of funding that the states get, if the state is getting less, so are the local towns. You add additional items such as "No Child Left Behind" act and you have a major burden on local towns to come up with the additional funds, and then the local tax payers are now paying more for personal property and in some cases such as myself auto-taxes.

I have not seen an economic upturn in my business as of yet, we do keep our fingers crossed and hope that we don't close down by year end. (This co. has been in business for 55 years) Because of the turmoil in the Stock Market we have not had any raises in three years. With every consumer staple, energy prices, increased co-pay in healhcare-prescriptions and child-care and no additional raises to reflect the rising costs, it has been a long hard 3 years. With no end sight and a posibility of a Co. closure needless to say I have not slept well as of late.

I would like to add a few comments in regards to oil prices that Debateguy talked about, and yes those items are a big factor. You all so need to be aware of the fact that the refineries are able to get as much crude as they need (quoting oil co's. on that statement)but the refineries here in the US can not refine the crude fast enough for distrubtion. You also do have to add Iraq in the equation of higher crude prices because like it or not Iraq is not outputting any where near as much as they had, or have. And Bush in Co. are responsible for the latter part.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:01pm


I don't like the deficit either, but I understand that it comes from a lot of factors beyond the president's control-the end of the tech bubble which was largely responsible for the Clinton era "surplus", corporate accounting scandals which devastated the stock market and the attack on 9/11 which devastated the economy and required huge expenditures to recoup from Clintons' massive defense cuts, among other things. I disagree that the way to eliminate the deficit is to simply take more of people's money. Economic growth leads to a larger tax base which leads to increased revenue. Tax hikes eliminate incentives for investment, slow economic growth, and rarely result in an increase in revenue. Those are simple economic facts. I heard the same scare tactics used during the Reagan administration-the fact is, the economy is cyclical, therefore deficits are cyclical, chances are we will NOT be paying off the deficit, it will be paid off by the next economic boom (unless excessive taxation occurs and prevents that boom from coming.)

BTW, what does President Bush have to do with the high gas prices? The current increases are due to the hurricanes, from what I've heard. You're not blaming Bush for those, are you? And I don't blame you for not feeling safe in NYC. The certain knowledge that there are vile animals out there who want to kill Americans doesn't make me feel safe either, but the fact that we haven't been attacked here in 3 years helps a little. Perhaps the terrorists are concentrating their efforts in Iraq becasue they are having too much trouble carrying out their plans here. I don't pretend to be confident about that, but it's possible.


"I hate seeing people dying in Iraq but I know that only by sacrificing now can we ever hope to defeat these extremist, murdering animals, bring freedom and prosperity to the middle east and eliminate the conditions that foster terrorism."

The extremist, murdering animals we were supposed to go after were al Quaeda, who plotted the Sept. 11th attacks. They were headquartered in Afghanistan-- where the Taliban is now regrouping and Osama is still uncaught. So I am very confused by what you mean. Iraqis were not extremist animals plotting to harm us. >

I hesitate to even go down this road again, I've been through it before here so many times. We are not at war against Iraqis. We are not intentionally killing Iraqis. We deposed Saddam Hussein, and now Iraqis and Americans are being killed by foreign terrorists and Saddam loyalists who want to prevent the democratic process from occuring. We are trying to provide the security and training in order to bring stability to the country. Whatever the rationale for going to Iraq, we ARE now fighting extremist, murdering terrorists there. We HAVE gone after al quaeda, 75% of its leadership has been captured or killed. We HAVE overthrown the Taliban, and more than 90% of eligible Afghanis are registered to vote (40% of them women) despite the intimidation of the remnants of the Taliban.

< By & large they were a secular society where many people were getting educations and women had more rights than many other Arab countries. >

They were a secular society whose leader funded and supported Islamic terrorism for the sole reason that he had enemies in common. People may have been getting educations but they also lived in terror of being abducted, raped, tortured and murdered for disagreeing with the regime (or just for walking down the street and catching the eye of Uday or Qusay in the case of women-some women's rights!)



See above for what we're doing there. No, I would never presume to explain anyone's sacrifice to them-there are many parents of U.S. soldiers and soldiers themselves who believe as I do, they don't need my explanation.



No, I don't believe there was a direct connection between Saddam and 9/11, and neither President Bush nor Karl Rove has ever claimed there was. What President Bush claimed was that given (according to all intelligence available to everyone in the world) that Saddam had WMD's, given his defiance of 12 years of UN resolutions, given his long history of funding, harboring and otherwise cooperating with Islamic terrorists, 9/11 taught us that we could not afford to wait until the threat of a collaboration between the two became a reality, possibly with biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons. It's the left which has tried to portray that Bush claimed Saddam was responsible for 9/11, but he claimed no such thing. Even though the WMD intelligence may prove to have been wrong (IMO the jury's still out on that), we had to go with the information that everyone agreed was correct at the time, and we had to force Saddam to comply with the terms of his cease fire agreement. Otherwise the UN as we know it becomes irrelevant, a paper tiger whose resolutions mean nothing and are to be summarily ignored by whatever aggressive rogue nations choose to ignore them. Unfortunately due to France, Germany and Russia's corrupt failure to enforce theor own resolutions, that's already happening.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:07pm
I have found estimates that show roughly 7.3 million barrels a day, and we are the largest consumer of petroleum currently in the world.

With the growth of industry in China, experts feel that China will overtake the US in 2 years, putting even more of a strain on oil producing countries.

My temporary solution is that I dont even drive unless it is aboslutely necessary (we also have a pretty fuel efficient car....23 mpg local, 30 mpg hwy. (I will be getting one with better mileage in 14 months when my lease is up too), and I also keep the temperature in my home lower in the winter, preferring to wear another layer of clothes instead of paying $1.80 per gallon for heating oil.....(who knows what it will be this year)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:11pm
-- You all so need to be aware of the fact that the refineries are able to get as much crude as they need (quoting oil co's. on that statement)but the refineries here in the US can not refine the crude fast enough for distrubtion.

That is another excellent point that I forgot about. We have not built any new processing plants in the US in over 10 years, and it looks like we need to either update the current ones, or add a few additional ones as our demand seems to be increasing ever so slightly every year.

-- You also do have to add Iraq in the equation of higher crude prices because like it or not Iraq is not outputting any where near as much as they had, or have. And Bush in Co. are responsible for the latter part

I disagree with this as the production from Iraq is a small fraction of what the other oil producing countries are respobsible for, especially after the first Gulf War, when the UN basically oversaw the operation, and limited the production. It does have an effect but nothing along the lines of the other items that I detailed in my previous post, or the refineries problem that you pointed out.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-02-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:24pm
No, I have been laid off due to cut backs, but its enabled me to finish college faster. I guess thats a good thing. My Ins has gone up, gas is at an all time high, Yes I was able to refinance my home at a lower intrest rate. But not having a job and not being able to find one is really putting the breaks on the grocery list every month.My husband has not had a raise in 2 years due to the economy, He is called in gets a great review but unfortently we are not giving rases this fiscal year, maybe next year, the x-ray dept is running on a skelton crew because of cut backs, the nursing staff has been cut back at the hospital, it dosent look good here.Our Ob dept is about to close, due to the high cost of Ins to the Doc's, they cannot afford the ins, I worked at a not for profit hospital, and things just look real bad, for them. I also have to send money to my grandparents to help them out because of the rise in medicare for them and there social security is the pits, my grandfather is working again at 74, seems to me like we where better off 4 years ago. I think things are going to get even more rough before it gets better, if we can pull our counrty out of the mess we are in.Hey after reading these post I am happy some of you are doing well, I hope it stays that way. Good luck!
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:24pm
I just wanted to make a comment on the gas prices going up and dealing with the hurricanes. The gases went up this past summer. I remember because once my mom, brother, and I were out and we had to stop and get gas and my brother noticed how the gas prices were up a lot more than normal around here. XOXO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:28pm
I don't go out much myself unless it's to class or school. Every once in a while the mall and of course the store. Everything for my family and I is like ten-fifteen min's away so it's not that big of a deal. My car doesn't get refilled with gas as much. We usually put $20 worth in and that can last a good while since we don't go out as much and every so often we go visit family. XOXO.
Avatar for momeebear
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:29pm
Wow......that is a LOT of oil! I also have a pretty efficient car (Honda Civic)....I had watched a local news report on the Toyota hybrid and it got some ungodly gas mileage, I can't remember the number, but it was impressive----plus--no emissions whatsoever. That's also a consideration for me, as I live in the WORST air pollution in Calif. (I'm pretty sure we passed up L.A.) But that may be a few years down the line.....I think there's a waiting list for the cars now.

Not sure how what we do here (no REAL winter) affects heating oil costs? We have central A/C and heating----don't know if this kind of system USES oil? I've never put any in, anyway! That must be for states that have more severe winters. Ours are pretty mild, and we do the same as your family, we'd rather bundle up than turn on the heater! Luckily, whole family is pretty warm-blooded! :-)
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2003
Tue, 09-28-2004 - 3:49pm
I am going to add further, if you chart the price of crude and sabatoge on pipelines in Iraq, you will see a direct correlation between the two. I also want to ask a few question about refineries, if they have enough crude but are not able to reifine it fast enough, what is holding the price up so high? Look at what happened to crude when the Saudi's said they "may" pump more per day...nothing, not a flicker. It goes to ask again why is it so high? I have heard many reasons some make sense and some don't. I have heard a lead energy analyst say that he believes that anywhere between $6 & $9 a barrel are priced in for terror. That is a big hmmm to me. Terror? But don't we have things in place to stop terror? If this energy analyst is correct in his thoughts, should this be a indicator of perceptions or worse yet of things to come?

I hear you about keeping the heat on low this winter....feet PJ's for the kids here we come! My boss (very smart man) believes that Heating Oil cost's are going to be huge..and with that, people will be having to take more out of their operating budget and in turn people will be spending less in the retail area, we have a hard winter to be looking at...here is hoping that we don't get a cold winter!