Find ways to reduce spending

To Kit Bond, Claire McCaskill, Jo Ann Emerson, all elected officials: I am writing to ask you to oppose any legislation that would further burden the U.S. taxpayer, especially the upcoming cap-and-trade legislation. While I agree that reducing the carbon footprint of human activity will not hurt the environment, placing additional business-killing taxes on corporations is nothing more than economic suicide. Businesses that can't pass along the additional taxes will close or go overseas.

Please remind yourselves that corporations don't pay taxes. All monies collected from corporations by all levels of government come from the corporations' customers, not some magic corporation taxpaying fairy. We pay those taxes when we buy their goods.

So a vote for cap-and-trade is a vote for a tax increase on my family, my friends and me. Is that what we sent you to Washington to do?

The only option that makes sense is to create tax incentives, not investments (spending) that will push the corporations toward carbon-emission reduction. Cap-and-trade simply takes more of my money -- more of my time spent working for the government.

We are already spending 40 to 50 percent of our labor working for the governments. When do we say enough is enough? Can't you create legislation to have the governments spend billions less?

Looking forward to 2010 and 2012, maybe your job depends more on how much you reduce spending, not how much bring back to your district.

BRIAN BOLLMANN, Jackson