State Representatives Put Themselves First
December 7, 2017 at 4:42 p.m.
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For more than 22 years, more or less, I have been giving my opinions to others via this newspaper, and one or two others.
While doing so, I have written about subjects that I feel strongly about, but never really shared much on a personal level about myself.
However, I do feel the need to speak out, due to the fact that my wife’s health is of great concern, yet certain people among medical personnel (doctors or pharmaceutical company officials) have seen fit to just shine us on, so to speak.
She is a diabetic, has been for close to 20 years. For much of that time, she took various kinds of pills for her condition.
She was hospitalized several times for various ailments since the mid 1990s. The last time she was in, the doctor in charge put her on insulin for her diabetes, and she has used it ever since.
Insulin is not cheap, and our rent has shot up in the past 12 years, while our combined incomes have remained stagnant.
Our local newspaper, front-page article (11/19/2017), ran a story about our state representatives for our area, and how they all voted to give themselves a pay increase, exactly like their predecessors in the same offices did several years ago. That started a furor among residents of the commonwealth, and cost a few officeholders their jobs in the elections which followed.
These “representatives” grant themselves big-money increases, all the while the working class (especially the folks on the low wage end of the line) get a lousy 2 to 3 percent raise, which adds up to zip because the cost of Medicare rises, thus canceling out the raise.
Very few big wage earners give a spit about the average person struggling to get by, even those in their own families.
My wife applied for food stamps a few years back. We were given a card, but we only receive $15 per month! Wow!
We have both spent our lives being spat upon, assaulted, ridiculed, stuck in low-wage jobs; even threatened by a family member (she and her mom by her dad; I by my own brother) and these incidents involved firearms on several occasions over several years!
We are just as good, or bad, as anyone else, and we both are just as deserving of respect! We have more than earned it!
William Gerald Smith
Lancaster, Pa.
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For more than 22 years, more or less, I have been giving my opinions to others via this newspaper, and one or two others.
While doing so, I have written about subjects that I feel strongly about, but never really shared much on a personal level about myself.
However, I do feel the need to speak out, due to the fact that my wife’s health is of great concern, yet certain people among medical personnel (doctors or pharmaceutical company officials) have seen fit to just shine us on, so to speak.
She is a diabetic, has been for close to 20 years. For much of that time, she took various kinds of pills for her condition.
She was hospitalized several times for various ailments since the mid 1990s. The last time she was in, the doctor in charge put her on insulin for her diabetes, and she has used it ever since.
Insulin is not cheap, and our rent has shot up in the past 12 years, while our combined incomes have remained stagnant.
Our local newspaper, front-page article (11/19/2017), ran a story about our state representatives for our area, and how they all voted to give themselves a pay increase, exactly like their predecessors in the same offices did several years ago. That started a furor among residents of the commonwealth, and cost a few officeholders their jobs in the elections which followed.
These “representatives” grant themselves big-money increases, all the while the working class (especially the folks on the low wage end of the line) get a lousy 2 to 3 percent raise, which adds up to zip because the cost of Medicare rises, thus canceling out the raise.
Very few big wage earners give a spit about the average person struggling to get by, even those in their own families.
My wife applied for food stamps a few years back. We were given a card, but we only receive $15 per month! Wow!
We have both spent our lives being spat upon, assaulted, ridiculed, stuck in low-wage jobs; even threatened by a family member (she and her mom by her dad; I by my own brother) and these incidents involved firearms on several occasions over several years!
We are just as good, or bad, as anyone else, and we both are just as deserving of respect! We have more than earned it!
William Gerald Smith
Lancaster, Pa.
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