Speak Out 12/30/13

William Street

I have voted for taxes to pay for different things, but I stopped a few years ago. A prime example is the William Street proposal and voting to renew a tax that is about to expire. The puzzle to me is that this would even be discussed, much less be voted on. William Street functions real good the way it is right now. I remember years ago that William Street needed to be made larger to accommodate the traffic. I guess the population has decreased since then. Now, it needs to go back to two lanes with trees and bushes. I have not voted for a tax in years, and this is a prime example of why I don't.

Emergency bill

I got my son's ER bill from a local hospital. We were in there for approximately two hours. It was almost $4,000 for a kidney stone that he passed later. So you people solely blaming Obamacare may want think twice. It is the medical facilities and the insurance companies, too.

Celebrating Jesus

I agree somewhat with the person that we emphasize too much on Jesus on Christmas but not enough on the rest of the year. I do agree we should emphasize more of the year, also. Yet at Christmas we are celebrating the remembrance of His birth. Don't we celebrate with big parties and etc. on our other birthdays and even on our former presidents and other people? So, really I think we should emphasize more at Christmas and on our Savior's birthday. I love celebrating our Lord's birthday and His death and resurrection on Easter. If we didn't emphasize so much more, a lot of the children wouldn't ever even know the meaning of Christmas and Easter because they never hear it at home.

To the curb

I think Phil Robertson and the "Duck Dynasty" crew should kick A&E to the curb. Fellas, kick the dust off your heels and walk away.

Tax gimmick?

Today is Friday, and I got the paper. Now they want to pass the use tax, and they claim they will cut the property tax. I hope the people don't believe them, because it's just another lie like the casino. They use the money for everything else and add more taxes. Our property taxes raised from the county two years straight in a row. Now they think they'll put this in the paper and people will be stupid enough to vote for it. I will vote "no" because it's nothing but another gimmick. They had the casino. They used the money for everything else for waste instead of fixing our streets and cutting the property tax.

Redneck waste

This is in regard to the "Duck Dynasty" deal. I think they ought to just let the guy go, and they ought to get rid of the show because I think it's a joke anyway. Just a bunch of redneck hunters having a good time and getting exceptionally good pay doing stupid stuff.

Partisan Smith

Remember when congressman Jason Smith voted to shut down the government but bemoaned the fact bipartisanship had taken a back seat to polarization and promised to work hard to restore the lost spirit of compromise? Well, so much for that. Smith recently was in a small minority of members of the House who voted "no" on the bipartisan budget deal crafted in part by congressman Paul Ryan. Of course, votes like that ingratiate him with his base, but I hope in the future we will hear less or nothing from him about the value of compromise and the virtue of bipartisanship. Really, it's just too much to take.

Obamacare security

I love the way everyone is talking about the Target credit card and how 40 million people might have been victimized by somebody hacking in to them. That is a thousand times safer than the Affordable Care website. It takes faith when you put your personal information into that website. You have no idea who's getting it. Think about that when you want to enroll into Obamacare.

Kooky definition

They are not mutually exclusive. Democracy is a political system. Socialism is an economic system. So, a country can be both democratic and socialist. With lesser regulated capitalism leading to the 2008 meltdown, we obviously need more government regulation of certain segments of the economy, like Wall Street. However, we do not need government ownership of major businesses and corporations, something that defines socialism. Those who claim this characterizes the U.S. are kooky and don't understand the correct definition of socialism.