Needs at home should take priority
I’m upset like others about bringing in refugees. We as seniors who worked all of our lives can’t even get a dollar raise from Social Security and health care costs went up. It’s not fair to see our dollars go to other places when we can’t get help.
Also where is there a place to house those people? They have a different culture, some might not speak English.
The government will most likely give them housing, food stamps and free health care – things we cannot get as U.S. citizens.
We have homeless here in the states. They don’t get a place to live.
Like Trump said, we need to fix our roads and bridges here. Why is it always OK to give our money to others when we need it ourselves?
It makes you wonder who is more important. It’s not our responsibility to take in everyone.
Shirley Newhard, Harrison
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Military deserves pay raise, thanks
It amazes me how some people can severely criticize and even murder our military recruiters and law enforcement personnel, the very ones who lay their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.
Can they not see what is happening in other parts of the world, like France, where people were enjoying eating out and attending a concert and were viciously murdered? It’s even beginning to be that way in areas of our own country; remember 9/11?
Please, let us take the time to praise our brave young people serving in the military and our law enforcement personnel and our veterans who have served honorably in the defense of this great nation.
We owe them so much more than a thank-you, and believe me when I say all are needed and will be needed even more so in the near future.
Our president refuses to give our military a well deserved pay raise and continues to cut its forces when, in fact, we need to enlarge our military. Let’s demand Congress override that decision.
Gene O. Wagner Sr., Rossville
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Let’s take care of our vets first
We are now discussing the acceptance of refugees from Syria.
Here is my question. Why are we willing to accept able-bodied men from this country while sending our American men to fight the people they are running from?
When these able-bodied men get here, we will feed them, cloth them and house them, while we have homeless veterans who fought for us.
Let’s forget being politically correct and start using some common sense. It is sad enough we have our own able-bodied men living on welfare.
When election time comes around, let’s vote ourselves off this vicious cycle.
Jack Pine, Dunlap, Tenn.
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CSLA still waiting for promised school
I was reminded [from a recent TFP front page] what our school looked like during the downpour. My children attend Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts, a magnet school in Hamilton County that serves students from every district.
The rain forced our foreign language teachers to move students from portables to the main building for classes. We have no covered walkways for students to access the foreign language or special education portables during bad weather.
Water runs down through the windows in these classrooms, and waterfalls appear from the rusted overhangs and dilapidated guttering that cannot divert water from our doorways.
We have been promised a building since the 1990s. But our children sit inside crumbling walls, next to leaky windows, on torn carpets, beneath peeling paint and stained ceilings. And yet they learn, excel, volunteer, lead and think.
Please tell me, county commissioners and Mayor Coppinger, when is enough enough for our school? When will politics be put aside for the actual good of our children?
How many rainy days go by before our leaders come up beside our school with a lifeboat – or do they prefer to watch us slowly be washed away?
Brooke Steele, Ooltewah