Editor:

I am not one of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent.

A recent letter in the Star Journal (Viewpoint, Sept. 23) tried to convince you that Mitt Romney was talking about the middle class when he mentioned the 47 percent. The writer’s definition of the 47 percent is a lot different than mine. When I was young, I believed and still do that to become middle class, I needed to get a good education. Then find a good job or start a business and work as hard as possible to be successful. After many years of hard work by me, my wife and our children, and especially with God’s blessing, we were able to achieve a degree of middle class. I am also a senior and a veteran. Through out my life I have been a student, a teacher, a union worker, a non-union worker and a farmer. None of which I consider part of the 47 percent. I receive Social Security and Medicare, both of which I earned and are now referred to as Federal Benefits by the current administration.

The real 47 percent are a new middle class that the current administration has tried to create, with welfare checks, food stamps and social programs. They have tried to convince people that this is a right, and that it isn’t necessary for them to work for it, because the government will give it to them. Apparently if you are a Liberal, you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Also, just to set the record straight, Romney didn’t say that he didn’t care about the 47 percent, he said that they wouldn’t vote for him.

Here are some facts:

• Unemployment went from 7.8 percent to 8.1 percent, and if you factor in the under employed and those that just gave up, looking for work the number is 14.6 percent.

• Median household income has gone from $54,983 to $50,964.

• The national debt has gone up over $5 trillion dollars.

• The gas price has gone from $1.84 to almost $4. If we had started drilling 31/2 years ago, we would be closer to oil independence now.

Another fact: If Obama gets re-elected, he will get a mess much worse than he inherited four years ago.

Ken Dirks, Rhinelander