Vague terms cost taxpayers

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On a TV business news report this morning I heard an Obama staff person speak concerning how Obama is focused on the middle class. This was a non-answer in response to a specific question about whether or not the president-elect should publicly involve himself in the Detroit automotive industry quagmire.

It make me think: we have no real means of determining who or what is the "middle class." Do a definition look-up yourself then try to tell me how anyone would be able to look at an individual, their finances, or maybe their lifestyle and say 'Yes, there is a middle-class person."

We delude ourselves when we vote for politicians who will in some way or another provide tax cuts to the middle-class because, at best, we have no idea what group that politician is referring to. Are we in that class? Who knows.

The best I could find was that "working class" meant those who were either manual laborers, or who worked for wages (the last definition surely includes a whole lot of us). "Middle class" referred to skilled labor and professionals (OK teachers, do you work for wages, or are you professionals), but who lack political power, which certainly excludes the unionized educators in America. The "upper class" appears to be the monied elite who use their wealth to influence public policy.

There is not one of those definitions though which I would feel comfortable using to sort out the group of people I might meet in a day.

If we are going to use those terms, we need a more specific definition.