We are the party of the new middle class

AMERICAblog reader Stephen pens a few thoughts on yesterday's health care victory:

We are the party of the "new middle class", that segment of the population that's been decimated by the Republican party. The wage earners upon whose backs JP Morgan, Bank of America, AIG, and the rest of the Republican constituency balance their checkbooks. The families who, from 2000-08 lost a substantial amount of their retirement savings.

We are the ones who bore the brunt of declining home values. We lost a generation to student loan debt (I've been screaming about this issue since 2000). Our salaries have lagged significantly behind the pace of inflation. We use our credit cards to buy groceries. We are at the mercy of an upper class that controls an overwhelming amount of the nation's resources.

They've suppressed wages, partnered with for profit higher education to exponentially increase the cost of obtaining a degree, while at the same time loaning vast amounts of money to 18 year-old kids who become trapped by what one writer many years ago called her "brain's mortgage". How can someone get a decent job without a college degree, yet how could the "old middle class" afford an education without selling their souls to the financial industry?

We are the party that will get you affordable health care, we are the party that will help ease the burden of student loans and rein in education costs.

We are the party that will save your retirement by keeping social security and ensuring continued growth in your 401k.

We are the party that will develop strategies so that the labor market will become a competitive free market again, increasing wages, allowing skilled workers more mobility.

We are the party that will restore home values.

We are the party that will keep your drinking water safe and your air clean.

We are the party that will rebuild our infrastructure.

We are the party that killed Bin Laden.

We told you we'd get Bin Laden and we got him. They told you they'd get him and they failed. They saw Bin Laden as another opportunity to profit at your expense. Your kids die, while Halliburton gets rich.

We are the party that will reduce reliance on foreign oil. How many electric cars and hybrids have reached market over the past 4 years?

They are the party of the rich. They want your money in their pockets, along with your Congressman. They want to pad their bank accounts with taxpayer dollars. They want you to fund their risky investments and bail them out when they fail over and over again. They don't want to pay taxes, at least not at the same rate you do. They don't want to pay for pollution control. They don't want a mobile workforce who ceases to be held hostage by the fear of losing their insurance if they dare speak up about working conditions or wages. They don't want you to keep your tax breaks. They want to keep you desperate and in debt…to them. They want you to be distracted by promises they never intend to keep - see: gay marriage, see: flag burning, see: abortion.