America! We have reached the cusp of the abyss. We, as Americans, have the power to act and reverse this course.
At this defining moment in our country’s history, America must rise up and take decisive action. It is our right and our duty! The stakes have never been higher! Verify your registration and make sure you know where to vote!
Please give your support and assistance to anyone who would like to vote but does not have the means to get to a voting booth.
The results of this election will determine the fate of our nation for decades and generations to come.
Let us never look back in regret to realize that we did nothing when our country needed us most.
McCain is married to the Bush/conservative view of economics that rewards the rich population of America with tax breaks and ignores the rest.
Through their purchases, the non-rich middle class contribute a great deal more to the nation’s economy.
McCain’s proposed health plan would provide $5,000 refundable tax credits but it ignores the fact that the average family health insurance cost in 2007 was $12,000. And if employers chose to pay that share of a worker’s compensation as wages rather than benefits, the income would be taxable.
McCain’s close friend and economic “mental recession, nation of whiners” adviser Sen. Phil Graham routinely turned down SEC’s requests for more money to police Wall Street. In 1999, Gramm was able to push through banking deregulation/oversight bill – the cause of today’s economic crisis.
Yet, McCain maintains his stance on deregulation, albeit, I’ll go after “Washington corruption.”
McCain doesn’t get it. If you leave the cookie jar open, there will always be those who will take whatever they can.
Did I hear Barack Obama say he and Michelle are still paying off their college loans? At their ages?
Our son stayed at home after graduating from a private college and worked two jobs until his loans were paid off. Our third child paid her first two years of a public college with her baby-sitting money.
I remember reading years ago of the professor with a doctorate, teaching at Stoney Brook University, N.Y., who had not paid any of his loans. Shame on him! And shame on the government official who did not “garnish his paycheck.”
Do these people think they are entitled to get a degree on the taxpayers’ money?
As parents, we were more than happy to help our four children. Today, I might be a rich retiree instead of a poor one if we had salted that money away.
Many middle class parents we knew chose not to help with the higher education of their children.
I believe the college loan system today is failing some of the needy students.
Is that because hundreds of thousands of dollars have never been paid back?
I discovered recently that potential candidates for a contractor’s license are allowed to take their books to their licensing exam. All the way through kindergarten and graduate school no one takes their books to their tests.
It seems the state of Florida subscribes to the overshadowing urban legend that anyone in the trades is just too damn stupid to pass the test for their own chosen trade without their books available. It is a disservice by the state of Florida to assault trades people with disrespect at the fundamental level of their learning. Bringing your books to the test means simply that you are not required to know the material in those books. You are required by law to be able to read.
The state has a licensing program whose creation and purported purpose is to offer quality and competency from those trades people who build and work in our homes. The contractor licensing program encourages people to cheat; not to gain the knowledge and to be the best they can be.
Contractor Educational Services is an industry based solely on the financial prospect of making a profit by assisting trades people to pass their contractor’s licensing tests. Essentially, these companies have a good knowledge of what will be on the exam and they pass this knowledge on to the individual trade’s person by explaining what to underline in their books that they get to take to their tests. Between the State of Florida and the Contractors Educational Services the trades person is encouraged to cheat and is charged a hefty fee to cheat. And possibly we are all charged and cheated by the inadequate work done on our homes.
Finally, the continuing education required of licensed contractors by the Contractors Licensing Board requires a licensed contractor to pay Red Vector $60. Red Vector is another lower institution of learning which takes the $60 and requires the contractor to go online and play with their mouse for 15 minutes.
M. H. O’NEAL
Picking up the tab, again
According to the article “Lee County businesses struggle to insure staffers,” Sept. 25, health care coverage costs have risen 117 percent in nine years. I don’t think inflation, malpractice insurance, rent or employee wages rose anywhere near that figure.
Economics 101 tells me that Wall Street and the overseas owners of much of our health care stock made, excuse the pun, a killing in the manipulation of the market of the U.S. health care industry. You and I picked up the tab again.
The health care industry needs major surgery, and Wall Street needs an enema. The patient needs to be the surgeon because it is suffering from a disease called “greed,” and avarice has taken control of patient needs and serious patient participation.
Over 100,000 families have had to file bankruptcy because one member of the family, including a teenager, had cancer. A national tragedy.
The United States is the only major industrial country in the world that does not have a health system for all of its people. Over 50 million have no health care insurance and have to use the “emergency” room for basic needs because most doctors will not take them because they lack “insurance” not because of illness. Going to the emergency room is the hue and cry of the 21st century.
Another 100 million are “under-insured” so in the major part of the treatment cycle they cannot be seen again because of “health insurance” problems.
Las Vegas gives you better odds than your third party carrier that you really never had a chance to negotiate with when the doctors, hospitals and clinics negotiated for you in your best interest. The patient never has a chance to be at the table with real costs and not phony projections.
Continue your good health because you can’t afford to get sick. Our health care “industry” is out of control.
A new ad on TV lately by the American Medical Association says that they took an oath to treat but cannot see everyone because of the lack of insurance. Need I say more.
Four years ago, I told my 16 year-old son in answer to his question about Iraq: “This is a war we cannot win.” We were in K-Mart at the time, loading up a cart of magazines, socks, and hygiene products to send to Soldiers’ Angels (
), a non-profit organization that supports our troops overseas.
This summer, I was their featured author for my mystery, “Christmas is Murder” (released September 2008 by Midnight Ink Books), of which 15 percent of my royalties go toward rehabilitating servicemen and women wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I condone a strategic withdrawal of troops from Iraq, my opposition to this costly war in no way diminishes my pride and respect for the young people who are risking life and limb for our country.
Little mention is made in the media of the tens of thousands of veterans returning from the war with horrific physical and psychological wounds. The average age of these vets is just 23. America owes it to them to ensure they get the best health care through the VA and the opportunity to pursue an education under the New GI Bill, which was co-sponsored by Senator Obama and opposed by John McCain.
C.S. CHALLINOR