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Pasco Letters to the Editor

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

Tax And Spend

Regarding "Probing Irony Of Tuesday's Vote Results," Tom Jackson, Jan. 31:

Fresh off a thoughtless lampooning of Bill Bunting, Jackson has slurred another Republican without checking his facts.

John McCain did indeed vote against President Bush's tax cuts. He clearly stated at that time that a tax-cut bill without a provision for reduced federal spending was basically flawed as a total package of economic sense.

McCain stood on his principles in denouncing what he saw as uncontrolled spending by Congress. In other words, it was clear to McCain that the tax cuts did not go far enough in curing the country's economic problems.

McCain has also clearly stated that he is favor of retaining the Bush tax cuts, now that they are in force, and he will continue to battle against overzealous federal spending.

Jackson has one thing right, though: The Democratic candidates, to a person, promise to increase taxes and rescind the current tax cuts. They also promise to even further increase federal spending with a host of government give-away programs.

Jackson's also right about the hypocritical irony of Florida's voters. Pasco county voters approved the Penny for Pasco sales tax in 2004 and then took it all back when they voted for Amendment 1, which will pinch each county's purse strings.

He is also right when he questions the quirky and murky thinking of those who would expand government budgets and bureaucracies by taking even more money from the people through tax-and-spend programs ad infinitum, as the Democratic candidates do.

The nation needs to continue the effort to reduce federal and local taxes of all kinds, for individuals and businesses alike, while curbing federal and local spending, which will contribute to a healthier economy and a stronger dollar.

Just like McCain believes.

LEE HANSON

Hudson

Scooter Boomers

I was walking around Wal-Mart the other day when I felt something brush my leg. I was ready to tell a kid with a shopping cart to slow down and be more careful. I turned and saw a middle-age man on one of those scooters.

Yikes! Then I jumped out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit by someone who must have been his wife. I thought, why couldn't he have been pulling her in a wheelchair attached to the scooter? This would have saved at least a thousand of my tax dollars.

What's next, super stores getting federal grants to build special aisles with stop lights? Why not a drive-up, where you could hand them your shopping list, and they would hand you a triple cheeseburger and fries to scarf down and the bag boy would put the groceries in? You wouldn't even have to get out of your car.

I don't want to coin a new phrase, but we are going to be overloaded with "Scooter Boomers."

I don't begrudge a truly disabled person or invalid getting a scooter - as long as they pay for at least half of it and have a prescription for it from a Medicare-approved doctor's office just for this purpose.

Did you know that Medicare was born out of your Social Security funds? What's up with that anyway? Wasn't Social Security supposed to be money we paid in so we could draw it out when we retired at 65?

Oops, now it's 66 for a lot of us. Maybe our government shouldn't have bought so many scooter chairs.

If Social Security had invested the money into saving bonds we could still retire at 65 or even sooner with full benefits.

DAN CHALFANT

Land O' Lakes

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