LETTERS: U.N. VIEW OF WATER: IS THE AIR NEXT?

To the editor:

Several years ago I made the statement that "if the politicians could figure out a way to meter it, they would tax us for the air we breathe." This statement was made partly in jest and partly for the concern I felt about the politicians' penchant for putting a tax, license, fee or surcharge on everything the populace uses, even our own personal property. If we have ambition enough to work for a living, the politicians claim almost half of what we earn as theirs to waste as they please.

A side note to this is that taxes are to operate the government. Foreign giveaways and supporting the United Nations are not part of our government's essential operations. So would you call the money taken from us for non-government uses taxes or legalized theft under the guise of taxes?

The government is getting closer every day to charging us for the air we breathe. A March 22 article in the Boston Globe was headlined "To Prevent Shortage, Water Can't Be Free, Nations Agree." Dateline Paris: "A United Nations conference on managing the world's limited fresh water supplies agreed yesterday that water should be paid for as a commodity rather than be treated as an essential staple to be supplied free."

Cities already charge their residents for the treatment and distribution of water, and people who live in the country own their own water systems and pay for them out of their own pockets. So this must mean that the United Nations is claiming all water in the world so it can charge us for the water that is already ours. Our Congress will probably go along with this, so that leaves the air as the next probably target.

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau