Speak Out A 05/30/02

We need sales tax

I AM against the Cape Girardeau City Council raising property taxes. I think the only sensible option is to raise the sales-tax rate. I have seen worse than a 7 percent sales tax. Besides, we want our employees to be happy, don't we? We also want more city services. Mayor Jay Knudtson is not beating around the bush. He's giving it to us straight. Without some kind of tax increase, Cape Girardeau will fall into a budget fiasco. Please vote for a sales-tax increase to save Cape Girardeau.

Welfare for wealthy

I AM all for welfare for the wealthy. As the onetime president of Archer Daniels Midland said, "It's the American way." Still, I'm opposed to using the government's TIF program for a local development project because the public has caught on to the scheme. If it's implemented, it might lead the general populace to get serious about ending all welfare for the wealthy. We can't have that.

Miffed over rift

If a tax credit is used

to fuel an ongoing rift

among rival country-club golfers,

then I will be more than miffed.

Waiting to vote

LET'S SEE if I understand how this works: It is perfectly acceptable to crucify presidents if they are Democrats, but it's un-American to criticize presidents if they are Republicans? I guess I am a proud un-American, and I can hardly wait to vote against this administration and its policies.

Seeking higher ground

IT'S NOT about survival of the fittest. It's survival of the smartest. Every person in this country faces the risk of being in a tornado or earthquake or any number of disasters at any given time, but we don't knowingly submit ourselves to the same natural disaster time after time when we could do something about it. Memories are photographs in a picture album, not a piece of property. Repeat flood victims should back their bags and move to dry land.

Vote against regression

WHAT IS there to be informed about (as you suggested in an editorial) concerning a Cape sales-tax proposition? All one needs to know is that it's regressive and to vote no.

If taxpayers pay ...

ADMIRABLY, Cape Chamber of Commerce president John Mehner wrote that he teaches his children to never give up. It was in that vein that he chastised the Southeast Missourian for more or less giving up on the I-66 project. Since it is costing $8,000 of city money to keep interest in the project alive, perhaps Mehner needs to amend his message to his children by telling them to never give up on a project as long as it's taxpayer subsidized.

I AM worried and hope he meant it to apply only to his anti-animal rights rant when David Limbaugh ended his caustic comment with, "I rest my case." Please, Mr. Limbaugh, if this means you're retiring, I beg you to reconsider. Your hyperbolic harangues make my day.

I AGREE with Attorney General John Ashcroft that we need a blue-ribbon panel to investigate events leading up to Sept. 11. I also think we need a blue-ribbon commission to check out why the recommendations of blue-ribbon commissions are never implemented.

A LEVEE in Dutchtown would be fine, but what's that going to do about the folks in Allenville -- or does anyone care about them?

Who blew it?

Please join with the Southeast Missourian editorial staff and columnist George Will and urge the Bush administration to appoint a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the pre-Sept. 11 period and find out who blew it.

Reform not possible

CAN THE Palestinians reform? When you instill a belief into a child, you can't reform that person. Can Palestinians reform? That's ridiculous.