Corker wrong on gas tax - and more letters to the editors

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Corker wrong on gas tax

I disagree with Sen. Bob Corker's proposed measure to increase the federal gasoline tax an additional 18.4 cents per gallon (call it a user fee - it's still money out of the taxpayer's pocket). That may solve the problem for highway funding, but progress is not made when a problem is solved with another problem.

It appears Corker has caught the politician fever and forgotten the principles I suspect he practiced as a business owner.

A smart business owner does not begin an improvement to his business, that requires extra cash, by increasing the prices of goods or services. Borrowing is one solution, but the best choice is to look for means to reduce unnecessary spending. Surely Corker practiced this before he began thinking like a politician.

By changing the way they think, our elected leaders would have no difficulty finding the necessary funds for this project - and thousands more, including the completion of the Chickamauga Dam lock.

Corker could surely line up strong support among fellow Republicans - and perhaps get some Democrats to join in the fun. Then the senator could take two aspirins, go to bed, awaken the next morning and admit that his original highway funding project was a dumb idea.

CURTIS REVELS


The difference in right and wrong

Hypocrite David Cook (June 18), repent of your own "horror of the self-righteous arrogance." "How juvenile and ridiculous, how shameful" of you to denounce "right-wrong politics" as wrong. Hey Big Brother! Come party with the Father and us prodigal but repentant tea-ites!

We repent of breaking promises: no new taxes, no new women, no nation-building, keep your plan. We repent of breaking the Constitution, e.g., "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States or to the people." (Amend it if need be.) We repent of buying votes with promises we haven't fully arranged to pay for. We repent of blaspheming compassion by using "compassion" as a name for bureaucracy.

Do you repent of your despicable hypocrisy - "My country pure, yours O.K. My religion right, yours O.K. My politics holy, yours corrupt" - in which you have "taken" yourself "prisoner"?

Sure, God outranks the U.S. and would change plenty of things here. Sure, Taliban and even traitors are people. But Jehovah's welcome to us prodigals never equates the Father's house with the pigsty. It requires us to notice the difference between right and wrong and repent of change from our wallowing.

ANDREW LOHR