Reach for your wallets folks. Here it comes......

[samintx]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16778.html

it is so nice to know someone in DC is pretecting my middleclassness. NOT

[rgG]

"I will be the guy honchoing that policy."

Hmmm, that just sounds wrong.

[Wags]

* Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
* Improving work and family balance
* Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
* Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
* Protecting retirement security

What part of this do you object to? Or are you having another knee jerk reaction to anything attached to the name Biden or Obama?

[samintx]

I believe we already have those services you mention. ...unless he is going to insure absolutely not one shread of any of them is overlooked for anyone or everybody.

[freeradical]

IIRC, the major expansion of the middle class came after WWII when returning soldiers got the GI bill which sent them to college, and helped them obtain loans for housing. I don't see the Government trying to expand the ranks of home ownership anytime soon. As for college, well maybe more grant money could be provided to the needy, but this would not have anything like the impact that the GI bill had.

[swampy]

* Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes

Obama's gonna put Biden in charge of spreading the wealth around.

[Dennis S]

It's about time. After 8 years of getting screwed, some people have learned nothing.

[swampy]

My biggest problem is, who gets to define "middle class"? Same question about as who gets to define "rich". I don't like all the definitions and class labeling.

Example: My neighbor, two doors down, is a lawyer, his wife a full tenured professor at the local Community College. Both have good incomes by most standards. Just looking at their gross income (I'm guessing a couple hundered K a year) some would say they were "rich". What most don't know is that they have three parents with Alzheimer's (two live with them-one institutionalized), two kids in college with a third a high school senior plus one much younger daughter.

If you know anything about Medicare, you know it's not paying all the expenses for the parents. The kids have scholarships, but if you've ever had a kid in college you know there are additional expenses, like most of us they have a mortgage, normal utilities, food, taxes, insurances, taxes, auto maintenance and gas. etc. etc. Imagine my surprise when, over coffee one day, the wife tells me they've had to give up satellite t.v., all their cell phones, dinners out, vacations, movies and even their two dogs. They just couldn't afford that stuff and were struggling. Their two younger children just qualified for FREE LUNCHES!

I suspect that the 'definers' (Biden et al), will only look at their gross income and determine this couple is 'rich'. Who's looking out for the WORKING POOR?

[lafinfil]

You suspect ? I guess that settles it then.

No point in waiting for any real facts before you make up your mind.

[swampy]

Well, I thought Obama and Biden did heads up start on this during the election when the "Tax the Rich" definition was such a moving target. It started at $250K and ended up somewhere about $40K? So, yes, I suspect, based on past performance.