Daily Archives: July 19, 2012

How do YOU define “middle class”?

52 Replies

Today, I went over to AARP’s local office to participate in a discussion about the future of the Social Security system. More about that later.

I just wanted to focus on one thing we didn’t really talk about.

Before our local group started interacting, we watched a video feed being broadcast to groups like ours at AARP affiliates across the country, which featured two experts who pretty much represented the expected “liberal” and “conservative” sides of the issue. They fielded questions from groups like our across the country.

At one point, they were asked to give their definition of “middle class.” Neither of them did, in simple terms, although both were eager to assert that their respective plans would benefit said class.

I don’t blame them. Middle class is a state of mind to a great extent, and as one of the experts noted, it’s hard to find any American who does not think he is middle class, however low or high his income. And of course, assets other than income play into any assessment of economic class.

But… in order to kick off a discussion, I’m just going to pick a couple of numbers and throw them out, and let y’all tell me how wrong I am and why.

I hereby proclaim that one is “middle class” if one’s household income is between:

$50,000

and

$150,000

I’m sure lots of people who make less than 50k will assert they are card-carrying members of the gray hordes of suburbia, but we have to make room for the underclass and working class somewhere, and I’m just going to say that working class ends and middle class starts at 50k. Perhaps higher. And with today’s prices, that pretty much means you are just hanging on to your bourgeois status by your fingernails.

Plenty of arguments could be offered for raising the upper limit as well. For instance, is a person who makes 100k still middle class? I’d say yes. So if a couple each make 100k, would they not be a middle-class couple making a household income of 200k? Sure, you could say that, but for the purposes of this discussion, you have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing it at 150k.

Does that mean I think you’re “rich” if you make more than that? No. I think there’s a broad territory between middle class and “rich.” A place where people are comfortable, but they’d better not kick back, or they could still lose it all.

Of course, all of this is fuzzy. You could have $50 million in assets, but just be making $100k — or even $10k, or not a thin dime– in additional wealth per year, and you’d still be rich.

But given the obvious shortcomings of any definition of class based purely on income, what do you think?

Nikki, you just keep right on Facebookin’…

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At one point in the midst of his reporting on the Senate’s override of most of the governor’s vetoes, Adam Beam Tweeted this:

Sen. Joel Lourie tells ‪#scgov‬ @NikkiHaley to “stay off Facebook.” He was referring to this post: http://on.fb.me/Q4QnOg

So I followed the link, to where the gov posted,

veto of SC Coalition of Domestic Violence $453,680. Special interests made their way into the DHEC budget. This is not about the merit of their fights but the back door way of getting the money. It’s wrong and another loophole for legislators and special interests to use. Defeated 111-0

Hey, if this is the kind of response she’s going to get, the governor should spend more time on Facebook, not less:

  • Nick Danger Dunn Loopholes for special interests are only okay when they’re being used by people who have donated enough to your campaign, or who share your similar “interests” of furthering your political power and mutual backscratching. Right? Right? Otherwise they are unacceptable and wrong.

    Tuesday at 11:30pm ·  ·  16
  • Kim Ponce Obviously you are clueless as to how sexual violence impacts adults and children in South Carolina. DHEC has a long history of providing much needed funding for these services, many of which insurance companies will not pay for. What if it was your child, your sister, your mother needing a change of clothes at the ER, a child sensitive medical exam or interview, counseling?

    Tuesday at 11:32pm via mobile ·  ·  16
  • Xiomara A. Sosa again, with all due respect, this is not a “special interest” issues. This is a health and human services issue. please doo not muddy the water with such political jargon that is only divisive and pointless. Respectfully, Xiomara A. Sosa

    Tuesday at 11:32pm ·  ·  15
  • Marnie Schwartz-Hanley Does that mean the agencies will get the money to help us so that we are not 8th in the nation for criminal domestic violence?

    Tuesday at 11:35pm ·  ·  8
  • Alyssa Daniel As a 20 year victim of domestic violence, you should be ashamed

    Tuesday at 11:36pm via mobile ·  ·  16
  • Angie Wilson Rogers Maybe now YOU can stop being a distraction to SC voters, One-Term Haley?

    Tuesday at 11:37pm ·  ·  13
  • Grace Ammons The people have won. But I still cannot concieve of how this woman became our Governor!

    Tuesday at 11:40pm ·  ·  13
  • Dawn Ridge We’re 7th in the Nation and climbing, but GOD forbid we have money to support Victim’s Rights!!!!! Just make sure those inmates are watching cable tv and having 3 hot meals a day!!!!! This is complete and utter BS!!!!!!

    Tuesday at 11:43pm ·  ·  9

… and many more…

Of course, the comment thread is liberally sprinkled with the kind of “You go, girl!” responses Nikki expects. But it’s far from the unadulterated stream of fawning adulation that caused her to retreat to Facebook as her favored means of communicating with the world to begin with.

Are some of those responses a little on the emotional side, and lacking in calm discernment? Yep. But so are the kind of responses that Nikki goes to Facebook seeking. You can get calm and detached on an editorial page, but our governor scorns that. This is her medium.

I just hope she reads them all.

Since you mention it, Tillman statue should come down

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In arguing that Penn State shouldn’t take down a statue of Joe Paterno because Happy Valley should not be allowed “to forget its own compliance in a national crime,” a guest columnist in The New York Times this week drew this comparison:

The need to clean history so that the record might reflect our current values, and not our sordid past, is broad. In Columbia, S.C., there stands a statue of Ben Tillman, the populist South Carolina senator who helped found Clemson University and, in his spare time, defended lynching from his august national offices. For years there have been calls to remove Tillman’s statue, emanating from those who think it a shame to continue to honor him. But in a democracy, memorial statues are not simply comments on their subjects, but comments on their makers. That Americans once saw fit to honor a man who defended terrorism from the Senate floor is a powerful statement about our identity and history.

Whereas Tillman’s most spectacular sins were known at the time of his lionization, Paterno’s only later came to light. And yet the central sin that now haunts Happy Valley has long been in evidence — a tragic myopia….

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ mention of Tillman wasn’t the best way to illustrate his point. After all, Paterno is a man whom this generation idolized, and who has fallen into disgrace at the end of his life, and these people who lived through both the glory and the shame are now forced to reassess what they think of him — or not, as their consciences dictate.

Ben Tillman is a whole other sort of mess.

To begin with, most South Carolinians, I’ll venture, don’t know who Ben Tillman was, or that that statue represents him. Until it became my business to know SC politics inside and out — which involved understanding our history — all I knew about him was that when my grandmother was a little girl, he was her neighbor in the Washington area (her father, my great-grandfather, was an attorney for the Treasury Department). Once, he coaxed her to sit on his lap by offering her an apple from his cellar. She asked to see under his eyepatch, but he declined. Her parents, who were from South Carolina, were later appalled that she had come anywhere near that awful man (I suspect they were of the same political persuasion as the founders of The State, which was established for the purpose of fighting the Tillman machine), but she never understood why.

Generations later, when I learned what Tillman was about, I was pretty horrified that she had gotten near him myself.

But walk through the mall and show a picture of his statue to 100 people, and I’m pretty sure far fewer than 50 will be able to tell you much about him.

I have no opinion about Joe Paterno, but of course the Tillman statue should come down. Mr. Coates notion of what to do with the Paterno statue…

Removing the Paterno statue allows Happy Valley to forget its own compliance in a national crime, to expunge its own culpability in its ruthless pursuit of glory. The statue should remain, and beneath it there should be a full explanation of Sandusky’s crimes, Paterno’s role and some warning to all of us who would turn a pastime into a god and elect a mortal man as its avatar.

… would never, ever happen with the Tillman one. The idea that South Carolinians would a) come to form a strong opinion collectively about Tillman, b) have that consensus opinion be one of condemnation, c) agree generally on wording that criticized, even by implication, their ancestors for having admired him enough to put it up, is pretty much beyond the category of things we should hold our breath while waiting for.

Basically, those of us who know who he was should just take it down, with a minimum of fuss, or with no more than a quiet exorcism ceremony. Of course, we’d have to get the approval of the powers that control the State House grounds.

I’ve spent all these years trying to get the flag — a symbol that most South Carolinians at least think they understand — off the grounds, but hey, I’m game. Let’s go for it.

And while I think it’s worth undertaking, I do feel obliged to warn those who help in this enterprise that we would likely encounter lawmakers who previously knew nothing about Tillman, but who, once they learned about him, would be inspired to rise to his defense…

McCain’s gracious defense of Clinton aide Abedin

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Just wanted to make sure all of you have seen this, which I first saw yesterday:

John McCain took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to repudiate suggestions by his fellow Republican lawmaker, Michele Bachmann, that the family of a longtime aide to secretary of state Hillary Clinton had ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

McCain praised the work and patriotism of Huma Abedin, a State Department employee who has been a constant presence at Clinton’s side. Without mentioning congresswoman Bachmann by name, McCain described the attacks on Abedin, a Muslim, as an example of ignorance and fear that defames the spirit of the nation.

“Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully.” McCain said. “I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.”

Bachmann, a member of the House intelligence committee, made the allegations in a June letter to the state department as well as in a letter Wednesday to fellow Minnesota lawmaker, represenative Keith Ellison, a Democrat…

Please watch the video, if you haven’t already seen it. Watch it all, and let its tone and pacing wash over you.

It’s a testament not only to the respective characters of the speaker and his subject, but a painful reminder of how seldom today we hear such graceful, honorable and high-minded speeches in our hyperpartisan, name-calling public sphere.

It is all the more satisfying to hear my kind of senator so gracefully decry the excesses of a politician who is emblematic of what has happened to his own party.

I’d like to hear someone like John McCain give a speech like this in response to someone like Michele Bachmann every day. It would really bolster my faith in our system.

Interesting footnote: McCain ends by saying “Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.” These are not the days of Daniel Webster. Today, not only are too few senators capable of such a speech as this, most of them won’t even sit and listen to one.