Speak out 3/25/08

Transportation costs

I AM a trucker who is an owner-operator. While you may feel the pinch of exorbitant transportation costs, the real pinch is on me and everyone driving a truck these days. With diesel prices averaging $3.97 a gallon this week, the price of transport goes up. Rest assured, I am not getting rich working to keep this country moving. The price of transport goes up, but the pay for moving that load does not. If anything, the freight price has fallen. I pay about $12,000 in state and federal taxes every year, not to mention the fuel tax, licensing, permits and road use tax. The road use tax only applies to truckers who are supposed to shoulder the burden for everyone. I think the government is wasting the road tax. With 3 million trucks on the road, our bridges and roads are falling apart because somebody can't keep his hands out of the cookie jar.

Vote yes in April

PLEASE DON'T forget to vote yes for the new tax proposal in April. This is a small amount to pay to live in the best city in Missouri.

Reason to complain

PEOPLE ARE carrying on so much about us being in Iraq as long as we have. We've had troops stationed in Germany since World War II. This goes back 60-plus years, and I don't hear anybody hollering about that. What about the other countries in Europe, Japan and the islands in the Pacific? What is really important to these people who are doing all the complaining? Is it what's going on, or is it just something to complain about?

Holes in pavement

HIGHWAY 72 in Cape Girardeau County on the other side of Jackson was already in pathetic shape. There are places with three- and four-foot chunks of asphalt missing, enough that when you hit them, you go down and your vehicle's frame hits the road. Something needs to be done about this. We can't wait until the state decides to resurface this next year or whenever they're finally going to get to it. This needs to be taken care of now.

Deal breaker

REGARDING THE need for better storm drains in Cape Girardeau and the half-cent sales tax we will vote on soon: As long as there is a swimming facility included in this proposal — as much as we need the storm system, and I live off East Cape Rock Road and my house floods — I will not vote for it. Most of the time people can't use the pool in the bubble because the schools are using it or the swim teams. If the city builds a family-type swim park, we still would have to build another pool for the schools and the swim teams to use. This family pool would not be open year-round. If you want me to vote for the storm drains, get rid of the family-pool idea.

Racist quotes

IF JOHN McCain's minister would have said just one of the hate-filled racist quotes of Obama's minister he said over the last 20 years, the liberal press, black America, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would have had a tantrum. What's the difference between him and the KKK? Obama should have broken off this relationship long ago. Doesn't Obama have any concerns of his mother's feelings?

Dogs in the yard

I LIVE in Westfield Subdivision, and I'm standing in my front yard with my dog, which is on a leash. There are three dogs from somewhere in the neighborhood in my front yard with none of them on a leash. Do I need to call someone every time I have a strange dog in my yard? I'm getting tired of having dogs in my yard every day.

Thanks for saving dogs

I WOULD like to thank the Jackson police officer who rescued the dog and her puppies. I think that is such a wonderful thing he did. I want to thank him and say, "God bless you."

Notable quotes

THERE WERE some excerpts of Ronald Reagan's quotes in Gary Rust's recent column in the paper, and I think a couple of them are worth repeating. One is, "No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." And the other is, "If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."