Everyone has heard about the record "profits" of United States oil companies. These companies are also in record debt due to the lack of backing and restrictions placed on them by our government. Oil companies are not the problem. Why doesn't President George W. Bush do something to help us? ...more

May 28, 2008

Will Retire When Ready Regarding "Early Retirement Unpatriotic" (Commentary, April 27): ...more

May 4, 2008

Losing Freedom Of Choice The great American humorist, Will Rogers, said, "Those people in Washington are no worse than the people who put them there," and added, "they're better than those who didn't vote at all." ...more

February 17, 2008

Better Things To Do Regarding "He Said, He Said" (front page, Feb. 14): God help us. This country is fighting wars in two places in the world. The national debt is at an all-time high. We are told a recession is looming. Homes are being foreclosed on, and the economy is in the tank. ...more

February 16, 2008

Our country's national debt is in the trillions of dollars, most Americans are head-over-heels in personal debt, most have not saved anything for retirement - and yet, the government's answer is to reward us with a tax rebate to "stimulate" the economy. And they may have to borrow the rebate from China, adding to the national debt. ...more

February 3, 2008

A comment heard on the radio aroused a compelling response. The caller said that both parties contributed to the serious crisis facing the country today, and contributed to the enormous $9 trillion national debt, and severe Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid crises. It is ironic that the caller cited the last 40-50 years. Consider this. It took 200 years (1787 to 1980) for the national debt to reach $1 trillion. It took 27 years for it to balloon to $9 trillion (1980 to 2007). Ergo: $6 trillion (1980-1992); +$2 trillion (1992-2001); -$5 trillion (2001 to 2007). Total: $9 trillion. So, who was in charge during those years? Who caused the $7 trillion hit on the economy in 2000? Who provided the prescription drug bill that was to cost $400 billion, but ballooned to $1 trillion and caused health care cost to increase 10 to 15 percent each year? Who allowed the corporations to duck their obligations for pensions all across this country? Who sat by while the banks and mortgage corporations manipulated the hapless home buyers to sign those sub-prime mortgages? As an immediate first step to resolve the crisis, who bought $2 millions of those egregious loans, then reduced interest rates for the banks and mortgagors, but left those hapless mortgagees swinging in the wind? Who is being held accountable? Where are those trillions and trillions of dollars? The answers? Corporations and our government! ...more

February 2, 2008

The Bush administration and the Republican Congress of 2001 buried the economy with the Alternative Minimum Tax. The first thing they did was to ditch pay-as-you-go to make the Medicare private prescription plan seem affordable in 2003. Shortly after massive tax breaks were given to oil and pharmaceutical companies. According to OMB.org: "Those tax cuts were designed to increase the amount of taxes paid through the A.M.T. The tax policy center, which has written extensively about A.M.T., notes that tax cuts enacted between 200l-2006 have more than doubled the projected share of tax payers who will face the A.M.T. in 2010 (from 16 to 33.6 percent). ...more

January 25, 2008

Gov. Crist was wrong for attacking and publicly stating that Allstate customers should seek coverage elsewhere. I have absolutely no affiliation with Allstate. I believe we pay too much for insurance and the industry controls too much of our daily lives. Our government should show some humility as they throw our stones from our glass houses. ...more

January 23, 2008

The police are just as out of control and inefficient as the rest of our government. It took me three separate visits to recover some stolen property from the sheriff's office. My attempts were made during normal posted working hours and as instructed by our finest. ...more

January 4, 2008

in priority order - the global war on terrorism, the shrinking U.S. dollar, the increasing trade deficit, threat of a recession, and the increasing national debt. Most alarming about this list is what didn't even make the top five. ...more

December 26, 2007