Mixed Emotions

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As I was reading this article, Wealth-Less Effect: Earning Well, Feeling Otherwise, I hade very mixed emotions.
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First let me say I don't think $250K makes you "rich". Second I don't begrudge anyone their rights to earn. Third, taxing the "rich" at a different rate is usary and it's social engineering driven, IMnotsoHO.
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But as someone from a background where the most my parents ever made was about $80K, and with my highest household income having been in the low $100Ks, families making $250K should STILL live inside their means.
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from the article,

Ellen Parnell and her husband, Donald Parnell Jr., seem like the kind of well-off couple President Barack Obama has in mind when he suggests raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. A surgeon at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in Sevierville, Tenn., he drives an Infiniti. They vacation at a beach resort every year.

Yet, right now he is working seven days a week. The car is more than a decade old, the vacation home in Sandestin, Fla., comes at a moderate weekly rate because members of Ms. Parnell's extended family own it. Her family of five would like more room than they have in their 2,500-square-foot home, yet they can't afford anything larger. The downturn has them skittish about paying for renovations.

"I'm not complaining, but the reality is Obama may call me wealthy, but I thought we were just good old middle class," says Ms. Parnell. "Our needs are being met, but we don't have a load of cash to cover wants."
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Well, they are middle-class, but VERY high end middle-class. A family of five, in 2500 sqft, he's a surgeon, she works too. And? Things are tough because they're car is 10 years old? They only get to go to the beach, for vacation, because it's a family owned house? AND?
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Because of the down turn in construction, my younger son lost his $50K blasting job in Hotlanta. He and his stay at home wife, and those wonderful grandchildren, moved in with us. They're savings were exhausted. My vehicle is 19 years old, my sons family's cars are 11 and 14 years old. We've had NO vacations in several years, no beach house is available, there's no money for vacating, and for 9 months, 6 of us, 4 adults, and two kids lived in a 1018 sqft, two bedroom, two bath apartment, on WAY less than $60K. And I still managed to put some money in savings every month.
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I think Ms Parnell needs to look around.
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For the Parnells, their perception of themselves is based on the math. The value of their house is down $60,000. Ms. Parnell says the couple's gross income last year was about $260,000. Taxes, premiums for medical care and deductions for Social Security and their 401(k) contributions cut the gross to about $12,000 per month. The family tithes $1,300 a month at their church. Their mortgage, second mortgage and payment on land they bought is nearly $4,000 a month. Other expenses, including their family car payment, insurance and college funds, as well as basics like food, utilities and donations to charities, leave them with about $1,200 left over each month.
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Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."
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I think, in this economy, having both jobs, having the ability to make your mortgage payments, keep making your tithe, make the land payment, make those college fund payments, go on vacation and JUST worry about the economy, IS IN FACT LUXURY.
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This IS the problem in America, too many people NOT realizing just, how, fucking, good, they, have it!!
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Much Chagrinned Schteveo