Letters to the Editor for Sunday, July 20, 2008

Published: July 19, 2008

Time for nation-building right at home
The choices aren’t good, but whoever gets elected in November has his work cut out for him.

We need a president who will look out for Americans first, period. Nation-building overseas? We need to think about nation-building here in the good old U.S. of A.

Click to send

Here are some ideas about Bush’s war and the price of oil: (1) Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now! Quit wasting trillions of our dollars fighting meaningless wars for oil or otherwise. (2) This “war” is in Europe’s “backyard” and they can fight it if they want to. (3) Pull out of South Korea and all other countries we prop up with our military. Why are we bankrupting our country to defend countries that are perfectly capable of doing it themselves? (4) Use our military to round up the 12 million illegals in our country and secure our southern borders. I can’t break one law without the Feds looking for me, so why do 12 million people get away with it? (5) Tell Israel to quiet down about bombing Iran. This isn’t helping oil prices. Also cut our ties with Israel and quit sending them money. They have enough money, nuclear weapons, and can defend themselves. If they can’t, sorry, we can’t save the world. (6) Stop Wall Street speculation in the oil markets.

Ideas for lowering the middle-class tax burden: (1) If the U.S. isn’t going to have national healthcare then at least give dollar-for-dollar tax credits for the cost of our medical premiums. This will reward people who pay their own way and help stimulate the economy by putting money back in their hands. (2) Give tax deductions for people who pay child support. Why should they pay after-tax dollars for their children who they can’t deduct and get no tax “credit” for these payments? (3) Give the smokers and drinkers a break by cutting the taxes on these items by 90 percent. Where does all that tax money go? (4) Allow people to deduct interest paid to credit card companies. (5) Give major tax credits for the purchase of vehicles made in America that get 30 or more miles per gallon. The higher the MPG the greater the tax credit. This saves gas and can help our American automakers sell vehicles. Again, we are talking about America First, not some other country; we don’t care about them.

Finally, stand up for our privacy rights. I don’t know how much Verizon, AT&T and other phone companies paid our congressmen to grant them retroactive immunity for turning over our private records to George Bush’s government, but it probably didn’t take much.

These are probably the same mentally challenged men who voted to give Bush $167 billion to nation-build in Iraq for a few more months.

These aren’t radical ideas. I’m just looking for a few good men to bring some sanity back to our government. Are there any out there?
JOSEPH TURK
Bedford

No sense at all
Does expanded rail make sense?

The recent editorial promoting the “new” rail service to Washington, D.C., exposed some serious business and financial issues.

As stated it would serve 33,000 passengers the first year at a cost to state taxpayers of $1.9 million.

Let’s analyze the numbers:

w It would carry an average of 90 passengers per day. Is that 45 up and 45 back?

w It would cost $58 per passenger not including the fare paid by the passenger that currently is $74 each way.

Doesn’t make sense to me when adding a couple of cars (as necessary to meet demand) to the existing train service could solve the issue of “are typically booked solid” as quoted in the editorial. Easy to do since trains are expandable (unlike buses or airplanes) and most people book a day or more ahead.
DAN LYNCH
Lynchburg