I know that what is happening to me has happened to others, and I know that this is going to come across as very "poor, poor, pitiful me," but I am going to write it anyway.  I grew up in a middle class family, and I remained middle class.  I married a good man with a good job at Ford Motor Co., but not an executive.  I taught school for a few years after we got married and was lucky enough to be able to stay at home and raise my kids for thirteen years.  We did not live high off the hog, but we didn't want for anything.  We enjoyed a very moderate lifestyle.  I returned to work at a time when my kids were all in school, and I was looking to be someone other than a wife and mom.  It was also a time when our financial state needed a bit of a boost, because kids are expensive.  My income did not provide us with luxuries but it enabled us to maintain a moderate lifestyle, and not want for anything.  Throughout those years and until now, while some years were definitely better than others, we never felt poor.  I remember saying to a friend, that we would be all right in retirement because we didn't need much.  I always thought we would be all right.  So here I am today with a job that I always thought was a good job.  I actually have loved my job and have been very good at it, and it has provided us with an income that has allowed us to continue to live a moderate lifestyle, but no more.  I now find myself in a profession that is reviled and more difficult to do effectively than ever before.  With all of the changes that will happen due to budget cuts I will not love my job, but more than that I won't be able to do it well.  I will be given more work to do, my resource to complain about unfair and unsafe working conditions will be taken away, and I will be making much, much less.  Making much, much less will impact how we live.  My husband is retired, my pay cut and paying 20% for my benefits will take us from middle class to poor.  We never over extended, but we did count on what we had still being there near the end of my working life and into retirement, but it is being snatched away by the greed that runs this state and this country.  Now I know that others are far, far worse off, and I know that those who are now worse off will be more devastated, so that bodes these questions;  Why doesn't anyone care?  Why are there people so unaware?  Why are those in office allowed to steamroll legislation through Congress that so impacts the lives of  so many, and those affected and unaffected are doing nothing?  Why is all of what is happening in the state legislature even considered legal?  Why are those upper class  people, living very cushy lifestyles so very happy with this administration?   I could go on and on, but by now I hope you get the point; we are being screwed and guess what?  We just keep turning over. 

Rosemary