Speak Out 12/03/03

Don't want to pay

I STRONGLY oppose the Medicare bill and the prescription drug plan in it. As a 27-year-old professional, I and my contemporaries will have to pay for seniors' drugs because they didn't have the foresight to save enough when they were younger. What's next? Will I have to pay for their milk or cable or bingo?

Patronizing activity

THOUGH CAPE Girardeau Councilman Jay Purcell may have been sincere in working for a day as a garbage collector, it was still patronizing. In addition, it was based on the assumption that the work of a sanitation engineer is somehow lower than that of others and that he was taking a lesser position so as to identify with the common man. Christianity teaches that manual labor is more worthy in the eyes of God than that of a white-collar businessman or corporate CEO.

Seeing it firsthand

I THINK Jo Ann Emerson's trip to Iraq was a good thing. How can she vote and represent us on issues involving Iraq if she hasn't seen it with her own eyes?

Not much doughnut

THE MEDICARE drug law has finally passed. The so-called doughnut hole has gotten so large that there isn't much doughnut left. It seems to me that the drug industry got the gold mine, and we got the shaft.

Beautiful time

I HAVE never read a column any better written than the Rev. Don Kuehle's on good thinking. He tells it like it is. Wouldn't this be a more enjoyable time of the year if we would all stand behind him and do as he says? Be thankful for many blessings. Let's make somewhere in between the seasons the most beautiful time of the year. Merry Christmas.

Explaining the facts

AS A teacher in the Scott City School District, I'd like to set the record straight on the hiring of the football coach and the 10 aides who were cut last year. The new football coach was hired but won't start until next year under another budget. As for the 10 aides, the teachers were asked if they would rather have the aides or a salary increase. The teachers requested a salary increase.

Pathetic situation

I'M SITTING here at my kitchen table reading the story, and I think it's really pathetic that Cape Girardeau doesn't have enough money to pay the most important people in our community, the police officers and the firefighters.

Start cutting at top

I'M READING on the front of the Southeast Missourian that Cape Girardeau officials say we're in a tight revenue situation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we just hire a municipal judge from out of town and pay her more than we were paying the present judge? Just like the Cape Girardeau School District, the city needs to start cutting, preferably at the top.

No concept of spending

THE SOUTHEAST Missourian devoted three front-page columns of Sunday's paper to the urgent shortage of funds for Cape Girardeau including "balancing the budget on the backs of city employees who aren't getting any raises." May I suggest that 42 city employees could have received $1,000 each with the money spent on the new city emblem. This city council just does not seem to have any concept of how to spend limited funds.

It's not in my Bible

I WAS having lunch in a mall restaurant. Two women and a man were sitting next to me. One of the women kept mentioning her Bible study classes, and the next minute she was condemning people, calling people "ugly" and seemingly taken only with herself. What is being taught in Bible study these days?

Students not consulted

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI State University is complaining about budget problems all the time, but all you see and hear about is constant remodeling and building new buildings. The latest is the remodeling of the University Center in the attempt to make the students happy -- or so the administration says. The university uses this ploy when, in fact, it has asked the students for no input. To be honest, I doubt the administration really cares what the students think. If they did ask us, we would tell them to save the money and use it on programs and our education instead of games and more office space for employees.

We knew that

I THINK you're right about it taking an outsider to point out what we already know. Cape Girardeau's a great place and could be better if everyone would work together. Isn't it sad that it took an investment of $42,000 to tell us what we already knew?

Out of control

CONGRESS WILL be returning to Washington against its own wishes to finish up the budget for fiscal year 2004, which started two months ago. But even as President Bush has maintained that it's imperative to "continue this notion of reminding the investors and consumers alike that we're going to have fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C.," he's done little to promote it himself, with government spending increasing more than 27 percent in the previous two fiscal years. In fact, the investor class he's reminding of fiscal discipline in Washington is warning that "the U.S. budget is out of control," as asserted weeks ago by Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs & Co.