The coming economic storm Food prices are up 48%. Energys up 23%. Wheats up 74%. Gas is up 68%.

Whats next? Is there an end in sight? For Social Security recipients, it may be coming very soon as conservatives in Congress demand an adjustment in the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) that was meant to help them cope with inflation. For endangered Middle Class Americans it may come in 2013 as this adjustment pushes more families into higher income tax brackets. Many of us in Hickman County are below the poverty level, often through no fault of our own. I fell into that category when my Brentwood employer shipped our whole departments jobs to India and my wife, a doctor, suffered a serious stroke that insurance didnt fully cover. We both ended up with nothing but Social Security and lost our home. When she died in 2009, that Social Security was cut in half. In January my pitiful SS payment goes up by about $20 but before I get it, the food stamps have been cut back to make up for that adjustment even though food costs have soared, leaving me with about $3 a day for food. This is happening across Hickman County and the nation to the poor and elderly. But for those who are members of Congress or the Senate, fear not. They are Constitutionally exempt from such cutbacks. Even if the federal government defaults on the national debt, they will continue to get their big salaries, along with their perks like free health insurance and all the others. First, federal taxes compared to the Gross Domestic Product are the lowest theyve been in 50 years even though local and state taxes continue to soar. Well soon see more local tax increases right here in Hickman County. Second, compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is still in very good shape. The European Union is staggering to its knees as millions take to the streets to protest cutbacks that are not working and not producing jobs as promised. That Arab Spring, which is now collapsing into an Arab Winter, was not about democracy, but first about bread and jobs and government corruption. Republicans promise that by making the poor and middle class suffer more, the rich will create new jobs by the hundreds of thousands. It wont happen. The wealth created by the cutbacks goes to the record profits of banks, international food conglomerates and oil companies and to multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses for CEOs. Jobs arent happening because the backbone of the economy, the middle class, doesnt have the money to buy what is already produced. If youre a small business owner, are you going to hire another 10 people to sit in chairs and stare at shoppers who pass by but dont enter? At the present time, one in four American workers earns less than $22,000 a year - the poverty line for a family of four and 20.5 million Americans have incomes of less than $9,500 per year. For six million Americans, their only income is food stamps. How can you ignore small business when its responsible for: - generating 65 percent of new jobs over the past 17 years. - creating more than half of the nonfarm private- sector contributions to our GDP

- hiring 43 percent of high tech workers (including scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others)? America's small businesses are also responsible for producing 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms. By shrugging off the problems of the very engine powering over half of the U.S. economy... ...and ignoring the source of 65% percent of the nation's net new jobs... ...and insisting on giving the money to banks and large corporations who've repeatedly shown us they can't manage responsibly on their own... ...Washington is turning its back on the best shot the country has at recovery. The trickle down theory of conservative economics translates to the bread crumb theory the top 2% of wealthy Americans get the steak and cake, the rest of us get the bread crumbs.

2012 by Jim Moore. All rights reserved.