Why don't you understand me?

I'm a senior citizen; you are my federal elected officials. We are miles apart in what I need. First, let's consider salary. Yours is somewhere over $200,000 by now. I'm trying to think of how many of my friends make your salary per year – none.

Let's consider health insurance. Although I have Medicare, I'd switch benefits with you anytime. But it's not going to happen.

Transportation – I pay everywhere I go. If you come home to your district; guess who pays? If you go on vacation to a foreign country, it's factfinding. I pay. When you travel around the state telling your constituents how good we have it, I pay. I live in my neighborhood. I hear the problems around me. You live in a suburb or Washington. I'm betting the mix in your neighborhood is far from mine. When you talk to your neighbors it’s stocks and bonds, the cost of delmonico steaks, the cost of sending your children to private schools, capital gains taxes, tickets for the opera or symphony, cost of maid service, lack of gardeners, BMW versus Porsche, flying first class versus business class, etc.

In my neighborhood, it's the cost of home heating, cost of gas increasing to run my not so new car, getting sick and will my insurance cover it, school taxes, county taxes, city taxes, state taxes. Why don't my elected federal officials hear me? It's obvious; our lifestyle is different. He or she forgot where they came from or never lived the existence of a common taxpayer.

Test – who are your federal elected senators? Which one is the senior senator? Who is your Federal elected Representative? In what city does he live?

John T. Kovich

Williamsport

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom