Letter: Government misspends
Heading reads, “Budget woes may shift gas tax holiday to gas tax hike,” yet, in the year 2005 the Federal Highway Trust Fund had a $10 billion surplus. Where did it go?
There is no such thing as a surplus of money in government. Surplus just seems to get redirected or misused, like Social Security that we have been paying into our entire working lives. Can’t you just envision the politicians in their plush offices jumping up and down, clapping their hands and saying “surplus, surplus, oh boy, oh boy!” Now we have to figure out what pet project to use (waste) it on.
They are quietly talking about raising gas and diesel fuel taxes by 10 cents a gallon of the highway trust fund (I don’t know where the term “trust” came from). And they threaten us with the loss of jobs so we will bow down to it, and they do not even have to put it to a vote. I think we should start at the top when it comes to job loses. Politicians are supposed to represent the people but they only represent themselves, and their special interest projects. Why else would they spend $200 million in special interest groups’ donations to get a $250,000 a year job?
Government should have to live on what moneys they have, like the rest of us, excluding those people who abuse credit cards and buy homes that they can ill afford. People work their whole lives looking for the light at the end of the tunnel but the government keeps dousing that light.
The term “trillion” was made up to describe our national debt and that it has. If businesses where run the same way as government there would not be any businesses. But the government just keeps going back to the well for more money, like the well will never run dry. The whole world knows that the United States of America is the world’s bleeding heart, sending money, food, and medical supplies to every natural disaster around the globe, with most of it not getting to the intended recipients; instead it’s raked off by those nations to feed their military while their people starve.
What about FEMA kicking Katrina refuges out of their trailers in Louisiana and Mississippi or the refuges of the Midwest floods and victims of the California wild fires? I think its time to do most of that “bleeding” at home where it should be a priority.
Quit spending billions upon billions of dollars in the Middle East wars trying to stop or change what has been going on since recorded time. So long as there are religious differences in these areas, nothing will change. It’s nothing more than a money pit, and none of it is worth our young men and women dying for. They haven’t been dying for their country since WWII.
Take care of the home folks first, after all, isn’t that what our government is for? Osama bin Laden once said, “ we cannot beat the Americans but we can bankrupt them.” Well just look around at our economy, its working! This country used to be world’s most powerful industrial nation. What are we now?
Just for the fun of it and curiosity’s sake go into a Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or a Target, to name a few, and look for the shortest aisles you can find, those are the made in USA aisles. There will only be two and they will be filled with, no-food-value junk snacks, and various soft drinks that are mostly water, oh yeah, bottled water, and candy bars. Products in the rest of the aisles will be the made somewhere else. We have become a nation of “let someone else do it.” We have become a nation of pencil pushers and paper shufflers. Take a look at health insurance for instance, there are more people administering it than there are doctors and patients. The IRS will spend $100 keeping an eye on $10. Maybe government should seek professional credit counseling.
Larry Turner,
Madera
