the economy and my job.

I guess I enjoy living in a bit of denial. I know the state budget is bad, and that there has and will be more cuts on the horizon. I know that there is a real possibility there may be no job for me to go back to after maternity leave ends in late June, and little prospects of finding another job for awhile. (Living in a community with an MSW program and gazillion MSW's does not help this issue.) However, I think I was really in denial about the reality of it until I was listening to NPR last night on the way home; and learned the proposed budget deficeit was going to be possibly 2 billion dollars more than most recently projected. Someone they interview said "there are going to have to be even deeper cuts, even in k-12 education. There will be whole branches of government that will no longer exist." Well, that was depressing to hear; did not make for a calm and enjoyable evening. Congressional democrats are wanting to proposed raising taxes. Now, I know that this would be pretty darn unpopular with many Washingtonians, particularly on the dry side of the mountains; however we will likely be getting a federal tax break through the economic stimulus package. If they have jobs, people make in less than 70k as a single or 140k as a couple will see some cash back in their pay check through a reduction in with holdings. I, for one, would be willing to pay a higher sales tax, or car license tax or whatever, if it meant that we did not have to have 10's of thousands of people lose their jobs, homes, sanity.... I would be willing to make some sacrifices for the greater good, I hope others would be too. I am not to optimistic, particularly regarding some individuals who are particularly conservative, however I would argue to that keeping people off unemployment, reducing the number of people who would be seeking food stamp and welfare assistance due to job loss, keeping people able to pay their mortgages, have income to buy things to keep businesses going; would be worth paying higher taxes for the time being. We need to keep funding education, infastructure, human services, corrections for the benefit of our society. This is not time to go running scared and hiding under a rock; it is time to pull together, to sacrifice, to help each other, to collaborate to resolve this mess we are in. It is not going to just go away because we don't want to think about it, we need to take action now.