What Did 2003 Mean for You?

It's that time of year when our thoughts inevitably turn to the year(s) past as we consider what has gone right and wrong.

Yet, while the TV pundits are busy patting the president on the back for having such a fine year, crediting him with turning around the economy, catching Saddam Hussein, winning the war in Iraq, and looking like a stud in that flight suit when he arrived on the deck of the Lincoln back in May, I'm just not at all certain that everyone is so much better off.

For example:

Perhaps you are one of the many people still looking for a job after 2 years. See, the government changed the way it reports unemployment statistics. Once you've been unemployed long enough, you simply aren't counted any longer because you're.. shall we say... inconvenient. Congress went on holiday break without extending unemployment benefits to many. Remember to give thanks for that!

Or maybe you're one of many watching the jobs you do have go overseas while the Republican Congress is working so very hard to give additional tax cuts to the very companies moving your jobs to India.

You might also be one of the record number of people still suffering from the grave economic losses from the collapse of the Enron/WorldCom bubble.

Or you may be one of the people in Connecticut struggling to get by while the Republican governor gets state contractors to pay for improvements to his expensive cottage in Litchfield County.

Or you could be among the record number of people in this country without health care... or close to the time when you'll depend on the Medicare system that Mr. Bush is very compassionately dismantling.

Or counted amidst the record number of people losing their homes to foreclosure.

Or the rising number of folks who live paycheck to paycheck - some studies suggest that MOST Americans now live with way, up sharply from just a few years ago.

Or perhaps you're a member of the military - or family/friend to someone who is - who finds that enrollment is extended indefinitely while Mr. Bush and Congress are cutting programs to support you and your family. Just being in Iraq or Afghanistan right now seems like danger enough without having to spend each waking moment worrying whether your kids are fed and educated and whether your spouse can get medical care or pay the mortgage.

Or maybe you depend on one of the many social services such as Meals on Wheels that are being cut back so that huge tax cuts can be directed to the most wealthy Americans.

Or you watch as your kids have their school weeks shortened by a day or more because more and more of the federal tax dollar goes to Halliburton and Bechtel rather than educating your children.

Or you lost someone you loved on 9-11-01 and noticed that funding for the investigation of the loss of the Columbia shuttle and its crew was more than 12x that of the money given to investigating what allowed 9-11-01 to occur. And the committee investigating has been stonewalled by the administration again and again.

Or your business has lost a mint because whenever poll and confidence numbers for the administration begin to slip, the terror alert warnings go up, impacting business, travel, and almost everything else.

And this is just the very tip of the frigid iceberg we're living in right now.

Just remember: 308 days to Election 2004.