Letters to editor

Reader disappointed, disillusioned after election

I am at a loss to know what to do with certain thoughts and feelings following the mid-term elections.

I am relieved that my wife and I, as well as tens of millions of other Americans, will not have to fear our Social Security retirement benefits being cut by 25 percent by the Republican Senate and House. With the Democrats taking over the House, we will no longer have to be scared for the next two years. The Democrats will block any Republican attempt to cut our benefits. The same holds true for those who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, college student loans, and Unemployment Insurance benefits.

But I am angry, bitter, resentful, and disappointed with many of my fellow Democrats who I thought cared about people like me who have low incomes. These affluent Democrats are members of the upper middle class and the upper class, although they don’t see themselves as wealthy and well-off.

I am angry at how they scolded me, admonished me, and tried to shame me and bully me for the past two years because I did not care much about the “identity politics” and “cultural war” issues that they constantly bashed Donald Trump over. I focused on the bread-and-butter and kitchen-table issues of everyday survival. I focused on protecting the safety-net programs like Social Security.

These financially well-off “liberal/progressive” Democrats thought that I should have been more concerned with the plight of illegal immigrants, for example. I don’t understand how they could have been so insensitive to my plight and the plight of millions of us seniors who have to live on Social Security checks of $1,200 per month.

A good friend who does not earn as much as they do has provided me with the answer- they can well afford to care primarily about the “identity politics” and “cultural war” issues and to focus on constantly bashing Trump over them. People like my wife and I can’t afford that luxury. We don’t have their high yearly incomes. They don’t need Social Security. They never will. It will not affect them if their Social Security checks get cut by 25 percent.

Yet I am still surprised and disappointed that these self-proclaimed “humanists” are so insensitive. I expected more empathy and compassion from them.

For the next two years, I will still focus on the bread-and-butter issues that the poor, the near poor, the lower middle class, and the middle-class struggle with that these affluent Democrats do not.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester, New York

P.S. I am a retired college professor of Sociology and social work. I taught at West Virginia University and Slippery Rock University.

Thank you for supporting Sleep in Heavenly Peace

We are starting to get donations and sponsors and I want to take a minute to give a shout out to those kind and generous folks. Laura Tynan gave some much-needed cash, Tim Tucker who does decorative concrete floors gave some tools, Sandy Haldeman who is the best Humana agent here in the country at the Health Care building here in Pahrump, Mike Scot M+M landscaping gave tools and volunteered time and I am meeting up today with Ronda Shelton.

She is donating some bedding for the kids. Thank all of you for stepping up to help the kids in our community. Our estimates are this community can use approximately 500 beds and at $300 per bed that comes to $150,000 so we have a long way to go but the longest journey begins with the first step. Please help in any way you can. If you could just see the look on the kids faces when they get their new bed you would get it.

Thank you all and God bless! SHPbeds.org

Gary Bennet