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.

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.

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.

Tuition at our institutions of higher learning is slowly but surely being priced out of reach for middle class families.

There's been an extraordinary expansion of the black middle class and a shift in the locus of leadership. A more diversified black community doesn't find it necessary to have one voice.