Letters
Letters to the Editor
TBO.com
Published: January 11, 2012
Republicans have short memoriesPublished: January 11, 2012
Do Republicans have any memory of events since the year 2000? Do they remember their own votes?
Apparently not.
House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have delivered Washington gridlock by refusing to consider even a modest tax increase for the wealthy.
They did this despite a huge national debt and current deficits.
How did we get such a huge national debt? The Iraq war is a large part of it. Vice President Cheney told the press that the U.S. would probably be out of Iraq after a two-year occupation with a total cost of $100 billion.
Pentagon appropriations for the Iraq war are nearly $800 billion. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz believes the cost of the Iraq war will be at $3 trillion by 2017. This includes caring for the veterans and paying interest on the money borrowed to fight the war.
Boehner and Cantor both voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Both supported the surge in 2007 and 2008, voting against resolutions to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq.
Until the budget is balanced and the federal government's past debts are brought under control, lower taxes now mean higher taxes later.
Apparently the Republicans in Congress have no memory that a Republican administration got us into the Iraq war and they supported it. Congressional Republicans appropriated money for the Iraq war, but they will not lay the taxes to pay the resulting debt.
As a child, I was taught that conservatives believe that you pay your bills. Do today's conservatives believe this? There's no sign of it in Washington.
Dale L. Gillis
Sebring
Wake up, water managers
Veterans Beach is closed another week for swimming. City Beach continues to be closed due to a hole that needs to be filled. South Florida Water Management and those responsible for preservation of our water and environment appear to be asleep at the helm.
Our lakes are lowering and most are looking green from the lack of planning as it pertains to providing a source for clean water to enter our lakes.
Little Lake Jackson residents have pleaded to have the canal opened up under U.S. 27. Their lake is now blocked from all clean water sources, and that lake is not the only one with problems.
The boat ramp at Veterans Beach channel is unable to launch a boat with a three-foot keel.
City Beach is closed because of the dredge hole.
Why not take fill from the Veterans Beach boat channel that is becoming too shallow to launch and the connection under U.S. 27 to Little Lake Jackson and use that fill to fill the hole at City Beach?
In the meantime, why not approach those government agencies responsible for maintaining a healthy water level and see to it that is exactly what is required of them?
Old-timers in Highlands County can remember when tall pines lined Lake Jackson. Water was close to U.S. 27, with a place to drive down to the lake.
What happened to planning, maintenance and common sense?
If anyone wants to take aerial photographs of the problem to get something done, I am available to fly them for the photos at no charge. Contact me at www.betterpilot.com.
I don't expect my phone to ring off its case and fall from my belt.
Rob Mixon
Sebring