Behind the Vote

LIndsay, I am surprised (but glad) to hear that your family is doing better than they were 4 years ago. I know it's none of my business, but I'm curious as to what your profession is (and your husband's), since most families I know that own mid- to large-sized businesses are doing worse or have stagnated in the past 4 years. I assume those in the public sector are doing well, since Obama seems to think that is the only important factor in regrowing the economy. My father owns one of the largest privately held businesses in our state, and his business has had to expand (nature of the industry), but they have simultaneously had to let many good people go because costs are just too high.

Well, my husband's company's revenue has shrunk by more than half, had to cut 2/3 of it's employees, and has had to expand the number of states (from 1 to 6) in which they provide service in order to be able to make less than half of what they were making in one state five years ago. So, no, we aren't better off. The employees they've had to lay off are not better off. They employees they were able to retain as well as my husband have to work harder and further from home and family far too often, so they are not better off either. My husband now travels at least one week out of every month in order to find work for his employees. His employees are often working away from home because it's the only place they can find work. No, this is not an improvement from four years ago. Remember, all of this sacrifice is for the company to have less than half as much work as it had 5 five years ago.

No we're not.  I work for a bank and things have been very, very difficult over the past few year with no signs of improvement.  Management just keeps "reorganizing" and laying off more and more people.  Those of us left work two to three times as hard and there is no opportunity for raises, bonuses or advancement.  My sister and brother-in-law own their own business and they've had to lay off over half of the work force and the remaining workers have voted to take 25% pay cuts in order to keep the business afloat.  My home is so underwater I couldn't possibly sell it if I had to and groceries and gas just keep gettiing more and more expensive.  Things are definitely NOT improving.

I'm happy also Lindsay that your family is better off. We're not. Our business has gone from 110 employees to 30. Plywood manufacturing. Our health care, that we HAD to get, is so much worse than what we had before. Before we "had" to give it but did, we never saw a bill and now everything is measured by "deductibles." It's awful. 6 months ago our employees voted whether to lay off another 3 people or go a year with no raise. They voted to keep people working. We're literally robbing Peter to pay Paul to keep our workers working.

The changes in the health care and the taxing of the "rich" has really hurt us and if you own your own business you know what I mean. What it says on paper you have is often in inventory and isn't cash in our hands. My husbands family has had this business since 1949 and it's in the worse shape it's ever been and if things don't change, we're going to lose it. All of last year we were on a 3 month to 3 month basis with our financial advisers as to whether we had to shut our doors or not.

Both of my parents, 76 years old have both had to take out Blue Cross and Shield because Medicare either isn't accepted or doesn't even cover half of what they need.

So no. This is why I don't want this to go on. We won't make it if something doesn't change and we don't have the cushion of patience.

@cleigh717 - you're the one doing all the bashing.  The rest of us were just answering the question asked at the end of the article....are our opinions less important than yours?