Dear President Obama,
During your election year I was thrilled to meet you when you came to Las Vegas. I campaigned for you and even donated money.
I am sorry I can't do that this time. I believed you when you said "Change"
I realize you have repeatedly said we must be pragmatic and compromise when it comes to politics.
I am a teacher looking at a state government who is intent on busting our union. I am asked to pay more for insurance and retirement although I accepted meager raises during the boom times. My pay is to be cut but I do not know how much yet.
I left a profession as a social worker with a Masters degree to borrow 40,000 to get a Masters degree in Education, at a time when the country was screaming for teachers.
After ten years of teaching elementary school, spending much of my own money for supplies, spending enormous amounts of personal time in my profession, volunteered countless hours for extracurricular activities, and always worked two jobs while teaching to support my family my profession, and myself, personally are now reviled by the entire country. How did this happen?
Tonight I sit here trying to figure out how I am going to pay my bills with the additional costs and a pay cut. Since I have been teaching ten years and am in my fifties, I am at risk for layoff, but one would never, never say it was because of my age or the amount I make compared to a first year teacher. would they?
Where have you been,, President Obama as the country ramped up the hate rhetoric about teachers?
I am lost. Who do I vote for in the next Presidential election? A President who ignores the tremendous unemployment rate of our country especially related to those over the age of fifty? The loss of full time employment for thousands in our county as corporations break our unions and decimate our employment laws? The loss of hope my eighteen year old daughter feels in the wake of high unemployment and low wages? Who do I vote for now? The suicide team intent on now taking away my social security and medicare when I am only seven years from eligibility? Or do I vote for you, a man I believed when he said, "Change Everyone Can Believe In? While I never supported Bush, his lies and manipulation were blatant and outrageous. We knew he was stealing from the middle class.
I don't know how you can ignore what is happening in states where government is king, people have no say, and big money doesn't even have to hide its role in dismantling one of the greatest nations in the world-all for greed. So who do I vote for?
Honestly, President Obama,
I have no one to vote for in the next election.
