Speak Out 12/21/12

Blanchard recognition

Recognition to Barbara Blanchard Elementary School needs to be given for maintaining a high quality learning environment. The entire staff maintains a positive atmosphere every single day when they first step foot inside the building. The teachers simply amaze me with their persistence, and it shows on the faces of each and every student.

Considerate person

Today, while visiting my favorite breakfast establishment, probably the only one in Cape that still allows smoking, I noticed a lady standing outside having a cigarette. When she was finished she walked past our table and I thanked her for doing this. She said she didn't want to impose it on others. Just because a place allows smoking doesn't mean you have to light up inside, especially if most people around you aren't smoking, as was the case. Thanks again to this most considerate smoker.

Dress code

Why aren't CHS staff and administrators enforcing the new dress code?

Dividend income

I just saw a TV commercial trying to scare seniors about dividend income being taxed. As a senior, I think it's only fair that people who make their living from dividends and capital gains pay the same as people who work for their living. I'm happy to pay my regular tax rate on dividend income. It's only people in the upper tax brackets who want to keep paying less than ordinary workers.

Obama, GOP

Some are saying President Obama is attempting to humiliate the Republican Party in a deal to avoid going off the fiscal cliff. Considering everything that's been thrown at him to attempt to delegitimize him over the past four years, I would encourage the president to go for it. Eating some crow and humble pie might be good for Fox, right-wing talk show hosts, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and the rest of the extremists.

Union busting

Iconic labor organizer Mother Jones, buried in Mount Olive, Ill., would be horrified at what has happened in Michigan. Organized labor helped move the working class into the middle class and now is union-busting, Republican-controlled state governments are attempting to reverse the trend by making middle class working folks the scapegoat for the Wall Street meltdown, the consequences of which continue to reverberate throughout the country.

Overtaxed

This is no longer a free country, and prosperity will continue to decline as long as it is penalized. A Supreme Court Chief Justice said that to tax something is to destroy it. This country has been taxed to death. It is ironic that excessive taxation and taxation without representation was the basis of the Revolutionary War. If history repeats itself, get prepared.

Medicaid expansion

Another head scratcher. Medicaid expansion is a great deal for the states. The feds pay 100 percent in the first couple of years and up to 90 percent thereafter. So, naturally, if paradoxically, Missourians will, I predict, in the name of -- you got it -- states' rights, turn the program entirely over to Washington.

War on prosperity

The rich are being called greedy by the very people who want to take away their income. That is the greed and envy by Obama and the people elected to office and their war on prosperity in America. We once had a war on poverty. Now there is an objective to achieve poverty in this country. People will learn the hard way. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

Greater Cape group

Who are the members of the Greater Cape Girardeau Benevolent Association? They're apparently involved with this land deal purchase from SEMO. Any time I see the word benevolent in the name of a development organization my first impulse is to grab my wallet.

Defense cuts

That should tell you something. No less than a distinguished group of U.S. generals have stepped forth and called for deep cuts in defense spending.

Jensen column

Mike Jensen's criticism of retiring Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson borders on reprehensible. Although Emerson was not progressive enough for me, I realize she did the best she could to represent all of the people in her district, not just the increasingly extremist moneyed interests on the far right. If she would have voted for policies they favored, the poor adults and children in the 8th Congressional District (it has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation) would have been left to fend for themselves while the plutocrats would have articulated a conscienceless "let them eat cake" point of view.

School board meetings

Just wondering why the Jackson School Board seems to make it so hard to find out when they have their meetings. I have tried to go to a board meeting and they weren't meeting that week. So I checked the school website and the school board page says they meet the second Tuesday of the month, which is when I went. Then the school board policy link says they meet twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesday. So which is it? And can they even make a district change like that without meeting and voting on it? With all the talk and angry parents/taxpayers in this district, you would think they would make it easier to find the information so people could attend.