My life has been nothing special. I am a quiet person who came from a very ordinary, middle-class Negro family.

I grew up in an upper-middle-class family. Street life is foreign to me. I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive.

would lead to a 40 percent cut in current benefits for middle-class beneficiaries, add five trillion dollars to our national debt and make the system weaker in the future.

In childbirth, as in other human endeavors, fashions start with the rich, are then adopted by the aspirant middle class with an assist from the ever-watchful media, and may or may not eventually filter down to the poor.

This is a full-scale assault on middle-class homeowners, and we need even at this early moment to indicate to the president that we'll bear any burden to defend against it. We ought to take a look at the lavish [tax] giveaways we give to huge corporate interests.

That a whole part of the middle class detests me... is utterly normal. I would be troubled if the contrary were true.