Page 8 — THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, Friday, April 8, 2011
LETTERS Who decided these were the responsibility of N.H. taxpayers?
Lakes Region still has 90X more miles of sewer than gas lines
To the editor, Those protesting the new House budget in Concord last week have one thing in common, they want N.H. taxpayers to open their wallets for their personal benefit. Most protesters were public employees demanding no changes to their cushy, secure, low stress, highly compensated (compared to similar private sector) jobs, nor to the corrupt system that maintains their great jobs, benefits, and consequently grows the cost of government . The politicians want power, they use your tax money to buy support from special interest groups. The special interests protested because their spending didn’t work so well this time, and they want power back. Even though the new budget protects the most vulnerable, protesters presented sympathy inducing people who suggest great harm from the tiny cuts in the new fiscally responsible budget. A 16-year-old speaker worried about rehab cuts. Another speaker worried about possible service cuts for a person disabled in a motorcycle accident. (Note: across this country private businesses endure 10-20 percent cuts without affecting the services they provide. Only in government could a 3-percent budget cut impact its ability to provide essential services, it would be by Executive Branch choice.) While I don’t expect any impact to these services, I wonder who decided these were the responsibility of N.H. taxpayers? Did N.H. citizens consider and decide to accept financial responsibility in these situations, or did politicians decide that they could buy votes from beneficiaries and government workers from placing this burden in N.H. taxpayers? Who should be responsible for children‘s behavior and needs? Where were parents when the child became addicted? Shouldn’t parents fund their child’s rehab? We all have great sympathy for the disabled, but when did NH taxpayers accept responsibility for the care of people injured engaging in high
To the edtior, In response to Steve Earle’s recent letter beating the dead horse on the president’s birth certificate, what are those of us in the middle supposed to feel? Firstly, I feel Mr. Earle should review his Bob Dylan. “I was so much older THEN, I’m younger THAN that now.” Oh, but he is reputed to be among “many on the left”, despite his assertions that he was and continues to be only a “song and dance man”. Anyway proper grammar certainly helps in making a letter more credible to the readers. What most strikes me about Mr. Earle’s letter though is how it is the type of jargon that now defines our nation’s polarization. I am I guess even less enthusiastic about the spineless weasel president THAN Mr. Earle, but I think upon examining the record, Mr. Obama is simply Scary Movie II. His presidency so far has little or nothing in common with the vilification of either Jimmy Carter or the other not so popular not to be re-elected but excellent President George H Bush. On 9/11 we were attacked by Muslim fundamentalists, predominately from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, working closely it is assumed with Osama Bin Laden, another Saudi holed up in Afghanistan. In response to that attack we invaded Iraq. Of course THEN in an attempt at holding Bin Laden accountable we also invaded Afghanistan. Within weeks of those actions we abandoned the Weinberg/Powell doctrine. In recent years we have been attacked by Somalians. The Maersk Alabama incident, the attack on the USS Nicholas and most recently the savage brutalizing and execution style murders of four U.S. citizens on board their private yacht. Altogether 15 pirates were apprehended in this latest atrocity. We are attacked by Somalians so we then attack Libya? We are not likely to hear much further on the fate of the 15 thugs complicit in these foul murders captured by the U.S. Navy or see them brought to justice. Not with a spineless weasel as president eager to lay off the international fall out of bringing ALL 15 properly to justice. Obama has kept an open line on the red phone to Cheney going, he has sold out the American public and further orchestrated the continuing raid on the U.S. Treasury and the 50 state treasuries by re-appointing the Goldman Sachs former Chairman Paulson’s protege Ben Bernanke to continue as Federal Reserve chairman. Mr. Bernanke has as part of the continuing Wall Street bank bailout that’s confiscated approximately $300-billion a year in CD income from American savers and the tax revenue states like N.H. used to derive from that income. Mr. Obama has continued the orchestration of capital flight from the U.S. and the destruction of savings that his predecessor began . Mr Obama’s presidency has nothing to do with anything Jimmy Carter was about. Mr. Obama has sold out his country and his constituency to the Wall Street banks, the defense industry and his interest in maintaining his international reputation for political correctness.
risk activities, e.g., motorcycling, skydiving, bungee jumping, high-risk mountain climbing, car racing, airplane acrobatics, or other high risk behavior? Americans believe in personal responsibility. Shouldn’t people engaging in high-risk behavior have insurance, assets or family to support themselves in case of accidents? We all wish the disabled the best possible lives, but should responsible N.H. taxpayers have to pay for it no matter how the disability occurred? Maybe yes, but N.H. citizens should have these discussions. There is nothing wrong with protesting for one’s own personal interest. My letter is something similar, although my hope is to protect all taxpayers from irresponsible politicians and greedy public employees. Their objective is to divert for their benefit the results of the efforts that you expended for your family’s well being. New Hampshire Democrats irresponsibly increased spending nearly 24-percent in the last two budget cycles, when the government said there was nearly no inflation (e.g., no Social Security increases for the last two years). Democrats irresponsibly left the new legislators with about an $800-million hole in the 2012 budget. Despite the howls of special interest groups, the new Republican House responsibly made the necessary cuts and passed a fiscally responsible budget. The budget is forward looking, maintains existing levels of aid to communities, doesn’t raise taxes or fees, doesn’t downshift costs to local property owners, protects the most vulnerable, and creates an environment fostering job creation. There is no natural mechanism fighting uncontrolled government growth, we depend on our elected representatives to do this, and that is what the Republicans did. The Republicans who created and passed this budget deserve our support and appreciation. Don Ewing Meredith
I’m looking for wallet size photos of Thatcher and Reagan To the editor, Wow, fascinating letter from the “Professor” in Saturday’s Sun. I do, however, question whether those were the words of Leo Sandy or Professor Irwin Corey. Mr Corey, as you all know, was a great comedian, a thespian, a left-wing political activist who lusted for communism over capitalism and was an all around good guy. Anyway, it was in response to my letter of the previous day. He was objecting to my idea of academic freedom, which I believe is largely a misnomer in the USA of today. I recited a wish list for our schools which included voucher systems, merit pay, more charter schools, home schooling, rewarding good teachers, streamlining tenure and severely limiting public sector unions. Now, to quote the professor, “As far as academic freedom goes, fascists, communists, totalitarians and authoritarians are against it because of the tendency of academics to question traditional beliefs and policy”. The
professor’s next response to my ideas for academic freedom was to caution me, not wanting me to “end up in the company of people like this”. Huh? Later in the same paragraph, the professor made the following, startling pronouncement. “The university that Mr. Wiles dreams of exists in North Korea and Iran.” Who knew that these two lovely countries are all about freedom of choice, rewarding excellence and providing parents with maximum influence over their children’s education. Did anyone else besides me have an AFLAC duck reactionary moment after it has heard one of Yogi’s articulations of wit and wisdom? Whaaa? Yes, I’m afraid most of your letter left me bewitched, bothered and bewildered due to it’s nonsensical and contradictory correlations. Finally, when you said that you don’t consider yourself a liberal because you “find that position too conservative”, I jumped to an overly optimistic conclusion again displaying my see PROFESSOR next page
Mr Earle may raise some valid questions in his letter but destroys his credibility with his ideology rant. These people on the far right are no more credible than the bag of wind Hosmer or Ray Buckley, the lunatics on the far left. Mr. Buckley recently claiming the pension reforms in HB-537 & SB-3 are income taxes! Senators Forsythe and Bradley are not talking the talk in Concord, they are doing the walk. Nothing remotely similar to what our legislators are accomplishing in Concord is even being debated in Washington. It is this polarization that is causing gridlock in DC. Jimmy Carter had to deal with paying for a past war, no easy task. He was the first to tell us that 5-percent of the global population could not expect to continue consuming 60-percent of the global natural resources for much longer with out some cost. He told us 40 years ago what the spineless Obama laid out in one of his latest speeches. George H Bush was a legitimate war hero, a true pioneer from a conservative district in Texas and the guy who coined the words “Voodoo Economics”. As a young Congressman he almost lost his bid for re-election when after seeing the situation racially in Vietnam. He began to champion civil rights for our GIs, his fellow war veterans returning from that war. As president he stood up for and raised taxes as against the tsunami of entitlements and military spending the nation faced. We finally threw him out even though to the end he tried like Carter to accomplish what was right and not just right or left winged. Three years into the Obama presidency we still find that the greater Lakes Region has 90 times more miles of sewer lines than natural gas mains. This summer some bridges will get fixed but that spending will not help us with our heating bills next winter. NOW, Mr. Obama is talking the big energy initiative platform. A few years after he re-appointed the guy to The Fed who has caused the U.S. PE$O to be crushed and driven ever increasing oil and other commodities speculation globally. When Jimmy Carter was president a Loonie was near 70 cents, now it is near $1.04. As soon as oil drops back below $85 the emergency will again be over and alternative and renewable energy policies will go back on the scrap heap. The left delighted that there will be no more oil and gas exploration and the right delighted that those wasteful kooky alternative energy ideas that were never going to work will all be canceled. Natural gas will drop back below $4/MM~BTU and we will continue importing “cheap” Canadian oil as if it were not a foreign oil supply. I think as far as Mr. Earle’s letter goes, I’m perceiving myself to be in the middle, am a lot more amused by his outlook than “outraged”. Mr. Obama is un-electable for a second term. He is yesterday’s news. You can follow on WMUR’s web site the antics of the Republicans who would be his successors. None of them are going to touch “one penny of MY Social Security”. They will inherit if possible a more impossible situation than what see next page