Wake up America, I love you.

So I'm going off on a bit of a political tangent here, forgive me...

I have heard Barack Obama say that he only wants to raise taxes on the "wealthiest" Americans... those earning over $250,000 a year. Well, I'm going to go ahead and assume that this would also include households which earn that much per year combined. Now that I'm not working, we don't really come close to that, but when I was, we came fairly close! So I've really questioned myself as to whether I feel like I qualify as one of the "wealthiest" families in America - and I can tell you I sure as shoot don't!!

Don't get me wrong, I know that we do better than many, and even most Americans, and I feel very fortunate - but hey, we live in a 2000 SF house in Clintonville! We go out to dinner and take nice vacations, and certainly don't go wanting - but wealthy? I think not! We will scrimp and save for college and retirement just like anyone else. We know we can always put food on the table, but that doesn't mean we don't worry just like everybody else.

So I decided to do some research online about income levels in the US. Here are some interesting things I found...

Household income is a measure of current private income commonly used by the United States government and private institutions. To measure the income of a household, the pre-tax money receipts of all residents over the age of 15 are combined.

In 2006, the median annual household income was $48,201.00 according to the Census Bureau.[

In 2005, there were approximately 113,146,000 households in the United States. 19.01% of all households had annual incomes exceeding $100,000.

The aggregate income distribution is highly concentrated towards the top, with the top 6.37% earning roughly one third of all income, and those with upper-middle incomes control a large, though declining, share of the total earned income.[

Households in the top quintile, 77% of which had two income earners, had incomes exceeding $40,705.


SO my first big takeaway - that Bas and I learned about when we filed our taxes this year anyway - was that 77% of the top quintile have two wage earners - and they will be hurt by this. So I would guess that around 77% of people earning 250k or more are from two-income families, too. So Obama wants to raise the taxes on couples essentially like Bas and I - or close to it - before I stopped working. Bas and I both worked hard in high-school and college to achieve what we did, we had parents who sacrificed for us in order to get us to school - and then when we went out into the workforce we busted our butts to get where we are. And yet according to Obama, we should be penalized for this.

The second thing that struck me about these statistics was that 6.37% earn a third of our annual income. A THIRD! So if Barack really wanted to go after the wealthy - why not just restrict it to that THIRD!! And that's only if this money is that he is trying to raise really goes towards the betterment of our country and not towards government sponsored hand-outs and programs that we don't need.

The third thing that bothered me was that those with "upper-middle" incomes are controlling a declining share of earned income! What does that tell us? That our 30% tax bracket is already too high! If we make so much more money than the rest of the country, why not leave a little more in our pocket, so that we have more buying power, so that we can get more of the lower income tax bracket folks employed!! But Obama would prefer to just take our money, give it the poor through health care or new programs, and thus motivate them less to go out and work hard for themselves.

I can tell you one thing - America needs to wake up and realize that this country can't AFFORD BARACK OBAMA AS PRESIDENT. If we're all so worried about (what I strongly just believe is just a down cycle in) OUR ECONOMY, and $4 gasoline - then Barack Obama is not the answer!!

And this is going to sound completely callous and crass, but if he is elected I will understand why. The majority of our populations is so stupid and mis-informed that they actually can't think for themselves. (Sorry, I told you that would not be nice.) Wake up America, I love you.