LOUISVILLE — GOP tries to extend tax cut for the rich

  While many of us have used the last several weeks to argue about a mosque/community center located 500 miles away, Republican leaders John Boehner and finally Mitch McConnell have been on the Sunday morning news shows trying to sneak extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans through the back door.

They were fairly shredded by David Gregory on NBC, and yes, even by Chris Wallace on Fox. Normally such a performance would stop such an outrageous budget-busting idea in its tracks, but nobody seemed to notice. It was first absurdly claimed that the cuts don't add to the deficit.

That claim failing, McConnell this past Sunday, claimed that the expiring cuts are “existing tax policy” and so don’t need to be paid for. The fact is, the top 1 percent of U.S. wage earners put $348,000 and up on line 38 of their 1040; a powerful lot of money. And the majority of the tax cut dollars for this group would actually go to the top one tenth of 1 percent, folks who earn in the millions per year.

The tired claim that these cuts create jobs (maybe $7 per hour jobs) has been debunked so many times it is scarcely worth discussing. Hopefully, registered voters will start to look beyond the latest “culture war” issue and recognize that Republicans are trying to add $680 billion dollars to the deficit to help wealthy people who are not suffering like the rest of us are.

I am supporting Jack Conway for U.S. Senate and John Waltz for U.S. House and hope that all those who care about lowering the deficit will do the same.

Ed Edwards, Ashland



Discarded food of great concern

This concerns the amount of food being thrown away at gas stations and restaurants. I work at a gas station in Catlettsburg. We sell donuts. At night we throw away close to three dozen donuts. The employees aren't even allowed to take them home. They must be tossed out.

This is an issue with me. I know there are homeless people living in Ashland, and I’m sure these people are hungry. Why can't we feed them? If someone is hungry and you have the means to feed them, you feed them. Why can't these gas stations and restaurants pack up the food, that is still good enough to eat and send it to a homeless shelter at night? What harm would that do? It's not like these places are going to lose money. They would throw away the food at night anyway.

Feeding someone who is hungry would ease my mind personally. Having grown up with a single, hard working mother of four, there wasn't always enough money in our household. Can you imagine how happy a few delicious donuts would make four little kids?

I'm not sure how many places in the area toss perfectly good food at night, but I'm sure it's probably a lot. What would be so wrong with the city paying someone to drive around and collect this food and take it to a local shelter? I understand that there are health codes, but a lot of the food thrown away is still edible. Sometimes people just need a little extra help, and if giving a person in need a donut every now and then, stops their stomach from growling and cheers them up a bit, then why can't we give them a donut?

Krista Stephens, Louisa



Tea Party and GOP one and the same

 The Tea Party and Republican Party are pretty much one and the same.  Current Republican officeholders are forced to support radical tea party ideas and their candidates in order to maintain party unity.  Trey Grayson, the mainstream Republican candidate Senator Mitch McConnell supported, lost to Rand Paul in the May primary and now McConnell has to support Paul.

 The Tea Party and its candidates like to exclaim, “We are going to take back the government!” Who are they going to take it back from?  We, the people, are the government. Are tea partiers going to take government back from themselves?

 What they really mean is: “We are going to take government back to the recent glory days when Republicans controlled our nation's executive, legislative and judicial branches.” It was a time when GOP leadership ran the country amok. Now the "Party of No," with no new ideas on the table, wants to be in charge again.  

 In their campaign rhetoric, Tea Party/Republican candidates say government is too big.  "Too big, or limited government" are code words for cutting needed social programs and entitlements. Then, if elected, these candidates become a part of the big government they detest.

If the Republican Party really means what they say about the need to limit government and cut spending, why don't they call for a serious reduction in welfare, corporate welfare and all our entitlement programs?  Make it a part of the 2012 Republican platform and have their candidates campaign on that plank. Also, why do Republicans only express concern about deficits our children and grandchildren will face when a Democrat is president and Democrats control Congress?

It seems a rowdy tea party should be a bad omen for Republicans in the mid-term and 2012 elections.

 Paul L. Whiteley Sr., Louisville



Column was biased to the nth degree

 Ann McFeatters’ Aug. 21 column — “Getting hot and bothered over religion and politics” — exhibited bias to the nth degree.

The column is replete with paragraph after paragraph in which she states as fact that which is and has been in question for many months while at the same time implying any who disagree are nothing short of  blithering idiots. Her take on the proposed mosque (now being referred to as a civic center or such ilk ) is that the thousands who find this a slap in the face are nothing more than Islamicphobes with no sense of the American way. 

She says Time Magazine found 24 percent wrongly  believe the president is Muslim; PEW research indicated 18 percent incorrectly  think Obama is Muslim; PEW’s finds that, one third of Americans know Obama is Christian, down from 48 percent last year.

 After the 2008 contretemps when millions of voters were furious at  the anti- American comments of Obama’s Christian minister, it is amazing that so many have forgotten his religion.

Are we getting dumber ?  Last year one in 10 wrongly said the president is a Muslim, compared with one in four today.

What McFeatters is saying is that she knows the answers to the questions in the poll,and everyone else just has an opinion. These adverbs all attach a negative connotation to the questions under consideration.

Obama’s actions are shouting so loud I cannot hear a word he says. How can Ann McFeatters state unequivocally those persons polled incorrectly think Obama is a Muslim?

Last year 48 precent thought  Obama was a Christian, and this year only 33 percent still think he’s a Christian.

Who is getting dumber? Ms. McFeatters has spent  too much time in D.C. It’s time for a reality check.

   Don Cartmill, Flatwoods

 

Individuals losing their freedoms

 Wake-up America!  The bell of freedom is ringing louder than ever, not only as a beacon for the oppressed around the world, but to beg its citizens to return to the founding principles that allowed this nation to prosper.

These principles support the framework of every individual's God-given rights by restricting the power of the federal government. For decades, we have allowed a variety of “progressive” elitists to mock and scourge these principles to the point we have lost their true meaning.  We have attacked the most vulnerable and oppressed minority of our society: The individual.

 Ironically, by giving misguided and/or power-hungry politicians the ability to choose which privileged citizens' property to steal for our behalf as the “victim group of the day,” we ensure another so-called victim's "right" to arbitrarily steal from us tomorrow. This begs the question: Have we become so delusional as a society that we believe our consciences are clean because a politician gladly separates us from the egregious act?  Since the individual loses freedoms by deception and/or force, it is your civic duty to know your freedoms and hold your politicians accountable for protecting them.



John Boarman, Owensboro