I am a small business owner... My wife and I work 10-12 hour days, 6 days a week. That is the only way we can make it, and raise our two boys, 11 and just turned 18. We are both college educated, and qualified in many areas, but cannot find a job that will pay enough to support our family. We cannot send our children to college because we are paying our own student loans, and will be for many years. We will never be able to retire in todays economy, we can only make it from month to month, there is no money left to save, or put into a retirement plan. We are both in good health, but our monthly health insurance premiums are so high, we can barely keep up on them. We may have to drop insurance altogether if things do not improve. Our oldest son has been looking for a job since his high school graduation last spring, but has yet to find one. He is competing against grown men and women for low paying, entry level jobs, and there are not enough to go around. So he relies on us for help, which is hard for us to provide. I graduated college with a 4.0 GPA, earned the President's cup, which is the highest honor you can earn at the institution that I attended. I am not asking for a handout, never have...but when can I expect to see some of this CHANGE everyone keeps frikin' talking about?! Get over yourselves and actually work together to solve some of these "domestic" issues....PLEASE!

We can't keep up this pace much longer....

As I said, I earned a 4.0 GPA at one of the toughest technical colleges in America...meaning I am educated, and fully understand the issues, and fully understand that our problems cannot be "fixed" by one man, president or not. The responsibility falls on us all, in our own families, our local Government, state, AND federal.

of course I am voting Democratic, I actually care about other people, and the legacy we will leave our children. I do not promote hatred as the Republicans obviously stand for. (see Palin or Giuliani speech for examples).
God help us all....

In response:
not whinning at all...I am one of the fortunate few who is making it ok right now(due to my own initiative and determination). I live in a republican state and community. We have shipped major local jobs out of the country, shut down most of the local sources of decent jobs, and our local leaders(Repubs) keep promising to change things...or keep denying there is a problem, for many years now. I am working in a field completely unrelated to my college degree, since there are no living wage jobs in my field in this area.
I refuse to move to "the big city" where my kids will be introduced to gangs and other major social problems facing our cities, just in order to find a job in my field. Deny it all you want...our Government has failed us, from the ground up.
Have a great day!