acroyear | yes, its politics. deal.

"The increase in premiums that middle-income families have seen over the past three years is actually larger than the four-year tax cut that they've been promised. This is an invisible tax increase on middle-class families." -- Tom Daschle, 1/20/04

Combine that with the tax increase from the states, caused by them doing annual property reassesments, continually increasing the "value" of our land (and thus the tax they collect), asssessments which used to only be done every 3 or 4 years, and we're definitely paying more per year than we were 3 years ago, with fewer services than before, and increasing that pay every year to the point that it may outpace the standard-of-living raises we get.

Add to that the continual encroachment of our civil rights by P.A.T.R.I.O.T. and its siblings, the selling off of our fair use rights and right of choice to the large media conglomerates, the degree to which our system is ignoring the problem of over-enforced technical IP protections limiting technical growth, and, lets face facts, the degree to which we were sent to war over a bold-faced lie, and you have the makings of a rather crappy state of the union, as far as my life is concerned.

Even up to 4 years ago, I used to call my political stance somewhere between "moderately apathetic" and "apathetically moderate".

Now, even just for myself and my wife, I can't afford to be apathetic anymore.

And that doesn't even take my future children's future...