Republicans have ruined everything, or How the economic crisis hit home for me

by: Fifey

Tue Oct 21, 2008 at 18:49:23 PM EDT

    I'd like to think that I know a little about hard economic times. I was born in Louisiana in the early 1980s where my father worked as a helicopter mechanic for PHI. In 1985 we moved to Michigan when the oil company ran into hard times and my father was forced to look elsewhere for work. He came to work for General Motors as a mechanic for their corporate helicopter and airplanes at Metro Airport.

    For the first few years, we rented as we had difficulty selling our house down in Louisiana. With the economy is turmoil, it was nearly impossible to find a buyer for the decently-sized house of which we were the original owners. In the end, we sold the house back to the bank and lost about $30,000 on the deal.

    In my childhood here in Michigan I grew up in a typical middle-class household. In addition to my father's work at GM, we had some income from my mother who worked as a preschool administrator and a Head Start director in a poor school district, before finally finding the job she's held for over a decade as a second grade teacher. We weren't rich, but there was always food on the table. I would later come to realize how hard my parents worked, and how much they sacrificed so that my little sister and I always had what we needed. We might have had hand-me-down clothes from cousins and I might have had a job since I was 14 to help offset bills and expenses, but I never knew the fear of losing our home.    

    My father was forced into retirement by GM this month and (surprise surprise) his severance package won't keep him afloat for very long. He's looking for a new job, but as a man in his late 50s who hasn't had a job interview in over 20 years with no college degree, his choices are very limited. He's hoping for a job down in Georgia with a company that makes airplanes, but nothing is certain, and of course his bills won't stop coming in the meantime.

    As for me, I'm in my 3rd year of law school. I owe $35,000 in student loans for my bachelor's degree and another $130,000 or so in loans for law school. I've had part time jobs over the past 12 years with the exception of a few months here and there to pay for my living expenses. Rent, a car note, car insurance, electricity and heat, water, groceries, not to mention the costs associated with having pet cats all require me to work.

    At this point in my scholarly pursuits, it is also important for me to have a job in order to gain experience necessary for finding a decent job when I graduate in May. Due to the economic situation here in Michigan, it was very hard for me to find a paid position. There were, and are, plenty of unpaid internships available, and I did complete one of these. My job search eventually led me to a small law firm 80 miles from my apartment. They were willing to pay for my travel time, and since the experience and pay were both so important to me, I took the position in December of last year.

    For the past 10 months or so I have driven to and from this firm 3 days a week. I've put countless miles on my car and too many gallons of overpriced gasoline in that car. At the end of the day, even with the cost of gas and the more frequent tune ups for my car, I was still able to make ends meet. There's been food on my table and in the cats' dish. I've been lucky; until today.

    I got a call this morning from my boss telling me that the firm was in the red, and I was being let go effective immediately. Given the state of the economy, my chances of finding a paid position right now aren't very high. I'm probably going to have to take out even more student loans next semester in order to pay my bills for my final semester of school.

    I'm not sharing my story in order to get sympathy for myself or for my family. There are plenty of people out there in even worse shape than us. There is still a roof over my head, and over those of my parents. We aren't going to pawn shops to make ends meet. I'm sharing this story to explain why I'm voting against John McCain in two weeks.

    The past 8 years have ravaged our economy and tightened the belts of every day Americans. George Bush has ignored us and given as much as he can to his millionaire friends across the nation and John McCain has been there just about every step of the way. I'm no fan of Barack Obama (I differ with him on many positions including the bailout, US involvement in the International Criminal Court, the immediate impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Chaney, gay marriage, and a whole host of other issues I find extremely important) but I fully realize that the only road to recovery for this country is with Senator Obama beating Senator McCain next month.

    John McCain's campaign has been calling Senator Obama a socialist over the past few days, and the campaign has shown nothing but contempt for the real middle-class and the real working-poor. I've read all the information on Senator McCain's website, and there is nothing there to suggest to me that Senator McCain is planning on doing anything to actually address the economic problems facing this country.

    John McCain and the Republicans don't care about my parents, and they don't care that I've been laid off.

    We need to fix this economy. We need to bring jobs back to America, and especially back to Michigan. We need to look to the future and find solutions that combine multiple problems. Energy independence initiatives (that don't involve meaningless gestures such as offshore drilling that won't lower gas costs once cent), better hybrid cars, stem cell research, universal health care, more regulation combined with criminal investigations into the subprime lending crisis, and other solutions that Senator McCain's record proves he doesn't really support are the only way to fix our economy.

    Electing Senator Barack Obama is the only way to make sure that someone else's dad isn't forced into early retirement. It is the only way to make sure that if a student needs a part time job to help pay for his education, he can find it and rely on keeping that job.

    John McCain is the wrong choice for my family and countless millions across this country. He's the wrong choice for Michigan and he's the wrong choice for me.

    On November 4th, I'm voting to help my father find a job. I'm voting to help my mother get a decent contract from her school district. I'm voting to lower gas costs for my car as I drive to job interviews. I'm voting for energy independence, for stem cell research, for the right to health care and the right to education. Most importantly, I'm voting for Barack Obama.