Editor,
What have we done to our children and grandchildren?
We have destroyed their economic future by demanding politicians give us legislation that makes us happy.
The cost of our happiness is the $13.6 trillion debt put on the nation’s credit card — our children’s card. Every American — children included — owns $44,076 of that debt, and it grows daily.
In 1960, when my first child was born, his national debt was $1,608. It grew to $5,167 when my grandchild arrived in 1982. Now it is $44,000. Why?
Because we elect people to give us happy stuff like 99 weeks of unemployment pay rather than an honest look at the reasons our companies move jobs to foreign nations.
Regulations, taxes and government policies make the cost of manufacturing so expensive. Hershey chocolate candies are now made in Mexico, not Hershey, Penn. Toxic wall board and baby formula is made in China.
The list is endless.
The $26 billion job bill is a happy treat: lots of stuff, but little of value. Teachers’ unions demand free Viagra, a waiver from participating in the health care bill forced on the rest of us.
The unions won’t accept a pay freeze or an increase in class size or firing inept teachers. Unions want a $200 billion bailout of their pension funds that have been mismanaged by their leadership.
Congress members, eager for union support in November, vote to give unions more by increasing our kids’ debt, even though the math does not add up.
Congress and the president prohibit oil drilling in Alaska, an oil rich land of the west, or in the Carribean and Atlantic.
We buy the natural gas we must have from other nations because of the regulations and prohibitions imposed by state governments. New Mexico has vast reserves of natural gas that cannot be used to heat our homes and fuel our factories because Gov. Richardson will not allow trucks to drive on grasslands to get that gas.
The people doing that drilling earn $60,000 a year. The state gets tax revenue, and gas costs less. Instead of gaining jobs and tax revenue, we send our money to people who want to destroy our way of life. Common sense says this is foolish. Common sense loses to environmental ideology.
A Florida electric utility built a solar plant next to a coal fired plant because solar must have 100 percent back-up. Even with special tax breaks, the cost per kWh of solar is twice that of coal generated electric.
Common sense says build clean operating coal plants and nuclear to have the electric power we must have. Common sense loses to ideology.
Stimulus money has been used to teach prostitutes in China how to drink responsibly, study the effect of cocaine in rats and many other follies.
We expect common sense from Congress but get nonsense.
This November, we must elect people of common sense if we are to save our nation for our kids.
Phillip Howel
Community member
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