I feel sorry for anybody who has lost his or her
job, but I feel sorrier for black Americans who have worked hard and have been
upwardly mobile. They have been thrown under the bus for the sake of President
Obama's personal and progressive agenda. Black Americans have been hurt the
most, with the highest unemployment rate, and black young people have it the
worst.
People keep asking how we can fix this mess. First
of all, the business community has been saying the same thing since Obama took
office, but nobody listens.
Businessmen
will not risk investing or growing their business or hiring with the uncertainty
that exists today. To fix this, we must fix what's listed below:
- Abolish Obamacare — small businesses cannot afford it.
- Unknown future tax burdens are hindering investment.
- Excessive government regulations are making it hard to run a business.
- Create a reasonable energy policy that keeps oil prices stable, promotes safe exploration of oil and doesn't try to destroy our coal industry, which provides over 50 percent of the electricity in America.
- Cap-and-trade legislation will harm our economy and will put an undue tax burden on business and everyone else.
- Stop the unfriendly attitude toward business and rich people.
- Make the tax code fair for everyone.
KINGSLEY C. BOOTH
Sparta
Voter scorecard
As we do not seem to have leadership in Washington and most candidates are involved in campaigning, it is important to know how candidates think on topics. I suggest the following, in no priority order and not intended to be gender-specific:
- Is the candidate a lifer (Beltway Boy in public service for more than 12 years) or a gentleman in service to his country?
- Does he follow a religion that is exclusive or inclusive?
- Does he believe in a balanced budget, with full disclosures and no earmarks, as a percent of GDP?
- Is he personally willing to grab a rifle upon committing us to war?
- Will he support an educational environment that promotes students by ability (with needs-based) for up to 14 years and by private pay with employer incentives for continuing education?
- Will he support private-pay (risk pools) insurance with needs-based testing?
- Will he support increasing the retirement age for Social Security and apply a needs-based formula?
- Will he open our borders to immigrants provided they play by our rules?
- Will he severely limit government-sponsored entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the U.S. Postal Service and move to a more market-driven environment?
- Will he support a "too big to fail" scenario ever again?
- How will he demonstrate leadership without rhetoric?
- Where will the jobs he promises come from?
- How does he propose tax reform?
We should show up on Election Day prepared to answer these questions on each candidate. There is no time for a learning curve.
HIL CASSELL
Lewisville
A different understanding
The writer of the Sept. 29 letter "Name-calling" seems to be a very kind, sincere and caring person. Everything he quoted from the Bible about homosexuality being an abomination is true. When I was younger I agreed with his belief, but after 50 years of Bible study, with many great teachers, I have reached a different understanding. I think all sin is an abomination to God. We don't just pick out one that doesn't apply to us personally to focus on. I think when Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself," this included everyone, even those we consider different from ourselves.
After working with the public for many years, and knowing personally many homosexuals who loved God and contributed much to our society, I realize how very wrong it is to take away the rights that others enjoy.
Our country is not a theocracy. The U.S. Constitution was written to protect everyone's freedom, not just that of those who believe as we do.
If we, as Christians, do not vote against this amendment to the N.C. constitution that takes away the freedom of homosexuals to have the same privileges as everyone else, then in my opinion this would be a sin.
But what do I know? I'm just an 86-year-old woman.
NAOMI J. DAVIS
Winston Salem
Cricketts.....
ReplyDeleteGood 'ole Naomi....she's always good for one liberal, Democratic letter a month.
ReplyDeleteMarriage is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. It is also not a right that is protected. Sorry Naomi.
What does a 86 year old woman know? Not much in this situation, apparently.
"Marriage is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. It is also not a right that is protected."
ReplyDeletethen let's get rid of it all together as a legal means for one group of citizens to gain "special privileges" that aren't available to all citizens.
If it's not a right that needs protected, then why does the far right support The DEFENSE of marriage Act? Why are they desperately trying to protect something that doesn't need protecting? Sounds kinda queer to me.
ReplyDeleteBobby....why aren't people screaming to allow single people to be able to file as married on their tax forms? If you are going to give 'special' privileges to one group, why not give it to all? That's why I'm for civil unions. Singles should get the same tax breaks as married people or people that are joined civilly, as I propose.
ReplyDeleteMarriage should be reserved for traditional, nonaberrant sexual and social unions.
What happened to your Schatzman picture? Hee Hee...I loved it.
Let me see if I have this correct. According to Dr Robert Jeffress,SBC Glenn Beck is a member of a cult. So right and yet so wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Bucky?
no just make married people file as single, very libertarian, let everybody file for him or herself,
I understand and appreciate the seperate but equal stance, so get rid of "marriage" in anything legal and civil. No more marriage licenses just Civil Union Contracts, which is what they really are, two adult citizens entering into a commitment and agreement. Not all marriages are based on love or sex, but commitment
It's good for the economy because two people living in a committed relationship generally will have a plan, have more expendable capital, and feel less risk for the future that comes with making a commitment.
ReplyDeleteWhy did I remove the pic? It was a point, not a profile.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks! Myrtle Beach was quite lovely, but it's back to the grind. Today looks like list day.
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Unemployment is more of a function of lack of education attainment than race. Those with a HS education or less (which runs alarmingly high amongst blacks) are the ones who are suffering most in this economy. As far as the list goes..same talking points that have been repeated. "Obamacare" hasn't even been implemented yet. Unknown future tax burdens isn't a valid excuse. If you can't handle the risk of unknowns, why are you in business? More regulations would be an excuse to hire people. There does need to be an energy policy focusing on a post-fossil fuel world so we don't find our dependency shifting from the ME to China. Cap and trade was defeated so it's not an issue. Should be more worried about the attitude of the masses towards businesses and the rich. What is a "fair" tax code?
LTe 2: Another list. Well, the Constitution forbids religious tests for office, and the time requirements for serving in the military would render them incapable of serving their constituents in office, so that's also not a consideration. While some of the list topics may be of concern to a swath of voters, what constitutes an important voter topic is up to each individual as this forum has shown. There will always be a learning curve, because you never know what your district or state may be facing.
LTE 3: Some theological arguments, although I do agree the proposed amendment goes against the FF's intention of preventing the tyranny of the majority.
"More regulations would be an excuse to hire people."
ReplyDeletedotnet
Club Nitwit is alive and well!
I realize this is over your head Bucky, but let's try a little quiz:
ReplyDeleteYou're the owner of a business who has recently been told of new regulations that will require substantial time and effort to meet. Failure to meet regulations results in a very substantial fine. You have already trimmed staff to the bone and have maxed out their capacity.
Do you
a)Reduce staff further which will make it impossible to meet the new regulations
b)Hold pat on hiring and hope your current staff is able to squeeze out more work to handle the new regulations without burning out or throwing up their hands and going elsewhere
c)Hire an extra person to help out with the new regulations
Polls are predicting that Chaz Bono will be voted off DWTS next. I guess people are getting tired of looking at the ex-bulldyke, now transexual.
ReplyDeletedotnet-- I think you have found the answer to unemployment! Add so many regulations that employers have to hire more people. The easiest way to do that is simply to make a regulation that requires employers to hire anyone who comes through the door looking for work-- no application required, no skills and no investment. Voila, full employment!! And, since the current minimum wage won't support a family of six, let's add one other regulation: all jobs now pay $100 per hour. We're suddenly all rich!
ReplyDeleteThanks, dotnet. Please call President Obama and tell him about your plan. I think he may make you a czar of something-- of course you may not want to work that hard for same wage as a night watchman.
Read this and weep:
ReplyDeleteWhere Have You Gone, Joe Dimaggio?
Good evening, folks!
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't noticed, regulation does create jobs, and has been so doing for generations. I was receiving traffic tickets from regulators in the early 70s. We have been paying regulators to enforce emissions laws, to the point that when I moved to L.A. in 1996, I asked where the smog was.
In the latter case, the regulators are doing what the private sector should have been doing, so the jobs of those regulators are just as valid as those of the assemblers welding catalytic converters into exhaust systems.
Now, whether we need more regulators, as I think we do for a certain segment of the body politic, is subject to debate. We can safely conclude that some currently emplaced regulators did not do their jobs (or committed collusive malfeasance) in the case of the Wall Street crisis.
You want to see useless regulation. Check out the local school systems. Meetings, forms, workshops, conducting lengthy studies on troublemaking students rather than booting them out of school and letting their parents deal with them . . . it is morass of wasted money, useless bureaucrats, exhausted teachers, and ill-served students. Yes, there is over-regulation.
There is certainly one thing that Stab and I can agree wholeheartedly on, and that is that public education is one of the most over regulated areas in our nation.
ReplyDeleteBeginning nearly 60 years ago, I received an outstanding education in the W-S public schools. Teachers taught and principals principaled and students learned, or at least, behaved themselves so that others could learn, and the truth is that even those who did not want to learn did because teachers taught and so did the other students, by example if nothing else. Administrators were few and far between. And everything was recorded on one document...the report card.
I knew that things were headed in the wrong direction when my older son was placed in the academically gifted program in 3rd grade. At the first parent/teacher conference, the teacher informed us that she had to show us and explain his IEP and that we had to sign it.
I wanted to know what an IEP was. She explained that it was his Individual Education Program. She had to create one for each of her 24 students. I wondered how much time she had spent on this project and discovered that it was way too much.
Things have gone downhill since then. The number of forms that teachers have to deal with has progressed geometrically. And each new form requires a new administrator to administer it.
Our teachers didn't require endless meetings and workshops. They already knew how to teach and did it. As Confucius noted "Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated."
Yes, we are definitely congruent on this subject. The BOE is meeting tomorrow evening. I hope I can make time to go. The teachers are now being presented with some core curriculum change that necessitates a shipload of more meetings. I have some comments for that useless board.
ReplyDeleteI asked Mrs. Stab if that means other meetings will be cut back. Nope, they have been told they will do this after hours and on Saturdays as needed. Can't fit this into regular hours, as meetings spill over into planning time as it is.
Saturdays? With no overtime? After pay and benefit cuts. Sorry, gang, this is now intruding on me the taxpayer, depriving Mrs. Stab, her children, and me of a family life, aside from stirring my absolute aversion to time-wasting meetings (on a par with my aversion to, say, the SEIU, thus a real aversion). I'm getting in touch with my inner T.rex.
Ha, ha...it doesn't matter what the subject is...Stab cannot resist bringing up unions.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can find a passage in the Old Testament that prescribes stoning for joining a union.
Dadgum, somebody already has, almost:
1. Ephesians 6:5-8: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh.”
2. Colossians 3:22-25: “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh.”
3. I Timothy 6:1ff.: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor.”
4. Titus 2:9ff.: “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters.”
The Protestant Reformed Church cites these and other OT verses as reasons why labor union membership is sinful. The central issue is this: in the realm of labor, the owner, or management, has the right to rule, so that the Christian worker must submit.
ROTFLMAO.
Hi OT. Actually, I didn't mention unions, just left a hint. But, now that you mention it, the Obama Administration cut reporting requirements for unions. Can't have the pressgangs overburdened with accountability, can we?
ReplyDeleteI note your biblical citations, but don't place union chieftains, political activists, or locals' presidents and business agents in the servant category. I redirect to the proletarian plutocrat file.
Oops, actually I did mention the SEIU, but only for a comparison of aversions. Sorry for the error.
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out, Stab cannot resist bringing unions into the discussion. His condition is so bad that he doesn't even realize that he has mentioned unions.
ReplyDelete"Actually, I didn't mention unions, just left a hint." Really? D-E-N-I-A-L.
I guess the SEIU is the Southeastern Episcopal Illiteracy University, or some other Pat Robertson enterprise (union, and therefore, sin, free, of course).
Bad ends?