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Hernando Today

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 21, 2008

Financial Emergency

On Back Of Taxpayers

I have an urgent financial emergency. Is the patient still breathing? Yes, but it's very shallow. Does the patient still have a heartbeat? Yes, but it's very weak. What about the color of the lips? They're blue. Where do you live? On Main Street, America? Please send help quick. OK, just one more question: are you a liberal or conservative? Oh God, please spare me (click).

That call could have come from an auto plant in Michigan, a coal mine in Pennsylvania, a factory worker in Ohio, a real estate broker in California or Florida, or a senior citizen in Nebraska or Iowa. It could be your neighbor, your parents, your grandparents or it might even be you. Safe to say, people are hurting in significant numbers all across America, and if the financial fiasco of the last few days is any indication, more hurt may be on the way.

We are not talking about "chump change" here; this is serious money, and this is "real debt" our government is putting on the backs of this and future generations - hundreds of billions of dollars, and to what end? The American people have become victims of a "what's in it for me" political system fueled by "what's in it for me" corporate greed at all levels. This dastardly, deceitful band of hooligans have dined on our cherries and left us with the pits.

Who are we looking at to get us out of this financial mess? Why, of course, the very same band of dastardly, deceitful "what's in it for me" hooligans who gave us this mess in the first place. They'll no doubt go behind closed doors, coalesce around this issue and sometime after midnights announce they've found the magical acronym that will chew up this problem faster than Pac-man eats dots. You know something like the Social Security fix of 25 years ago. That combined effort gave birth to the Social Security tax Pac-man that takes billions of extra tax dollars out of average working American's paychecks every week, and carts the funds off to Washington.

That's where this dastardly, deceitful band of "what's in it for me" political hooligans spend it on - something other than intended - and create trillions of dollars of debt on the very taxpayers who were overtaxed to start with.

Let me try again - 911; what's your emergency? Uh - uh, oh forget it, I've talked to you before (click).

Jim Gries

Weeki Wachee

Domestic Betrayal

I am not an alarmist but must write what is the truth in an unavoidable miscarriage of American trust by our government. Corruption has seized control of those who purport to represent us, controlled by those who reward them with wealth and powers of influence. Of course, in all organizations it does not apply to 100 percent of them but a majority.

We are in unchartered waters since the Great Depression. After months of denial by our Republican administration, and years by Senate and Congress, they now resemble those on the Titanic, women and children first after the elitists. This has to be the most unprecedented bailout since the beginning of time. Bush, the CFO of corporate America, and his treasurer Paulson, ex-Wall Street chairman, have gone to the Federal Reserve Bank of America, Bernake, to bailout all their buddies who have supported them all these years. This puppet show must end. Fortunately, the show has ended.

The costs to the taxpayer will be somewhere between $500 billion to $800 billion as first estimated or as high as $1 trillion. The truth is they don't know. The fingers will begin to point, yet all they need to do is look in the mirror to see who is at fault. They betrayed us, they were empowered to protect us from foreign and, I emphasize, domestic enemies. They failed us and now we have to pay like always, not only with our blood in Iraq and our money for Iraq, but now with our dollars for our domestic enemies.

The American public must begin to once again understand that when the times are good this is when me must scrutinize our elected officials the most. Don't be fooled by those currently holding office and how upset they are over these events. Ask them who has been watching the hen house for more than years, not two years, which most of the Republicans would want you to believe. John McCain has the audacity to imply that it's Barack Obama's fault. Where has he been for 26 years?

Vito J. Delgorio Sr.

Spring Hill

Trade Agreements

Endanger U.S.

NAFTA, CAFTA, free-trade deals, fast-track authority have all handicapped and greatly hurt this wonderful country. Many jobs have been lost in the United States. The unemployment rate has climbed to a high of more than 6 percent.

We need Congress and the president to negotiate fair trade agreements that include enforceable workers' rights protections, currency manipulation guards, environmental protections and equal access for American companies to their markets. We do not have these today in our trade agreements, and it is time that we do.

The world needs access to the U.S. market as we are the largest world consumer. We are in the best position to negotiate and have failed the citizens of this great nation.

Barack Obama will ensure our country's trade deals contain these protections for Americans. What is going to happen in the future with our kids who are going to be fighting to get jobs in an unequal and unfair global market?

Elizabeth Tornuff

Spring Hill

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