Madness

Some facts and figures from MY life:

• My husband and I now pay almost $5000 annually for health insurance. That’s what WE pay. God knows how much husband’s employer pays. And this is Kaiser health insurance. Traditionally one of the worst HMO’s around. Remember the story a while back about the surgeon in Australia who was finally removed from service due to gross negligence? Like, that he sewed people up and their wounds reopened and their guts fell out? This guy worked for Kaiser in Portland for twelve years.
• Yesterday, my husband finally saw his Kaiser optometrist for his "10-day follow-up" appointment. The original appointment was May 6. Do the math.
• This past spring, we purchased the most expensive vehicle we have ever owned. We paid over $20,000 for it. And it is five years old. If it wasn’t for the fact that my business is making the payments, we wouldn’t have bought it at all.
• Yesterday, a house down the street from us that is exactly the same model as ours, went on the market for almost $100,000 more than we paid for our house a little over four years ago. That is almost a 50% increase over 52 months.
• Gasoline costs nearly $3 a gallon. An increase of slightly over $1.00 (or 50%) over a year ago. Diesel fuel, which is what my business vehicle runs on, is OVER $3 a gallon. (In southern Oregon, it was going for $3.50 a gallon. Two weeks ago. God knows where it’s at by now.)
• Grocery prices, including the wholesale groceries I buy for my business, have risen at least 10% over the last six months, and will continue to rise along with the price of gasoline.

My husband grosses over $75,000 a year. Kick in another couple of thousand in income from my little business. Okay. Eighty grand a year. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Especially considering that, ten years ago, we were grossing less than $50,000. Shouldn’t we be on easy street? Or at least circling the neighborhood?  (Instead of the drain?)

For the last three years, come time for husband’s annual performance review and raise, he has been limited to a 3% "costof living" raise. (And happy to receive that, as the company he works for is struggling to find its footing in the import-flooded textile market.) But obviously, with costs rising as meteorically as they are, a 3% increase doesn’t even keep us treading water. We’re being swept backwards, and none too slowly, by the current of rising costs.

Maybe this is not the time to complain about this. Maybe I should be counting my blessings, in view of the hardships that Katrina victims are facing. And in view of the horror that the people of Iraq wake up to every day.

But these are the facts of MY world. These are the challenges that make it that much harder for my hot-flash-wracked brain to turn off in the middle of the night. I lived through the Carter Administration. I lived through the days of double-digit inflation and a 20%-plus prime rate. We bought our first house during those years. And bought two brand new vehicles. And were able to afford the payments, on the salaries of a K-Mart department manager and a kitchen manager at a family restaurant. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index has not shown more than a 3.5% annual increase for any of the last ten years.  But husband and I are going backwards on three times what our gross income was twenty-five years ago.

It’s obvious that the government's "Consumer Price Index" numbers have absolutely nothing to do with what is happening in the real world. Once they "factor out" seasonal fluctuations or volatile commodities, what they have left are these fantasy numbers designed to make it look like the economy is chugging along smoothly and everything is hunky-dory. Theoretically, this is done in order to avoid exacerbating a negative situation by causing a panic. Okay…I can buy that. But when these useless numbers are used to calculate "cost of living" raises, everywhere from Social Security, to the military, to government workers, to the private sector, they are doing us an immense disservice. In short, if they have to publish bullshit numbers, why publish any at all?

Iraq and Katrina aside, what is the Bush Administration doing to address any of this? Cutting taxes. I have news for you, Mr. Bush…you could completely eliminate what my husband and I paid in federal income tax last year, and it would not cover what we have to pay out annually to keep crappy health insurance coverage. So, you have compromised your own agenda in the Middle East, and short-changed the domestic coffers enough to produce the anemic disaster relief effort for which you are now receiving so much (well-deserved) flack…for what? I, and millions of other "Average Jo(sephine)" citizens, are not enjoying any great windfall produced by your largesse.

If this isn’t a hellish mess… If this doesn’t get the American people seriously thinking about "regime change" here on our own shores, I don’t know what will.