Speak Out 7/17/05

Actuarial observation

I CANNOT see why Social Security is having such bad problems. Out of the six obituaries in the paper, three of the deceased were in their 50s and two in their 60s. That's a lot of Social Security that nobody's going to draw.

Lax enforcement

IT ALWAYS amazes me when people who drive city vehicles break the speed limit. I was following a fire department employee and the reason I know this is because his license plate says he's a fire department employee going 45 mph on Lexington Avenue who rolled through a stop sign. There was a police officer at the intersection who did nothing. Why are city employees given carte blanche to break the law? If a teenager had been driving, he would have been ticketed in a heartbeat. I'm sick of paying taxes and watching the laws discriminately applied.

Wipers on, lights on

WHAT HAS happened to the Missouri law that says if your windshield wipers are on, your lights have to be on. About one in four vehicles has its lights on. I'm sure the police don't want to stop the violators and get out in the rain. Let's turn on our lights.

Sidewalk concerns

I HOPE the city fathers will require the contractor to redo all of the problem areas along the new sidewalk on Lexington Avenue. There are some terrible situations in some yards. If the city lets the contractor get by with this, it will be tragic, because our tax money is paying for it and we're watching to see what the city council and city engineers do about it.

Party aftermath

THERE WAS a large party in Jackson's Deerfield Subdivision. The next day there was a huge pile of trash in the field across the road. Paper products are blowing on the road and in the field. Now the rain has made a soggy mess. Who do you think should clean this up?

Harboring fugitives

I KEEP seeing where the people suspected being involved in a crime are found at someone else's house. How come these people aren't charged with harboring a fugitive? They know that person is wanted.

Background checks

A MAN who was a Cape Girardeau School District custodian at the time of his arrest was sentenced as "a career offender based on eight prior felony convictions for crimes of violence." The district put a man with felony convictions around our kids. Why isn't the district doing background checks on custodians?

Misplaced criticism

EVEN THOUGH I'm not a fan of hers, I think the attack on columnist Mona Charen was uncalled for. I was visiting with my father over the weekend, and his opinion was that suicide bombers are the bottom of the barrel as were the Japanese soldiers that took their own lives. He said terrorists are making a desperate attempt to justify their cause. I tend to agree with my dad. The person who criticized Charen made me remember what my dad said. Terrorists are bad news, and we shouldn't attack our president when someone does something this dastardly and cowardly to a nation that's a friend of ours.

Tax cuts boost economy

DEMOCRATS HAVE been saying that President Bush's tax cuts are a mistake and that they've hurt the economy. But the economy has picked up. There are more people working. Unemployment is lower than it was in the 1980s or 1990s, and the government is taking more money. The projected deficit has been cut. As the economy continues to grow, it will wipe out the deficit. What the Democrats don't understand is taxes cause recession. It's a proven fact that if you cut taxes, the economy goes up.

No retaliation

GREAT BRITAIN has been attacked by terrorists. So why isn't Britain bombing some Third World country? Doesn't Britain know anything about spreading democracy?