Governors should listen to complaints
I was reading where state governors got a letter from a patriot group that was interpreted as a “threat.” If I were governor, I would invite them to my mansion and ask them why they were so upset. It must be important for these patriots to get the governor’s attention. Have you ever tried to contact the governor? You would think he were king.
With millions of taxpayers going to Washington, taking time off from their work and homes to hold signs in the streets, begging these leaders to merely leave us alone and keep their bureaucrats out of our bank accounts and business, forcing us to buy insurance, if I were governor I would expect some opposition.
And if I were governor, I would invite them to my house and see what the problem is. That is what Andy Jackson would have done. He was not afraid of everything.
JUNE GRIFFIN
Dayton, Tenn.
Higher parking rates hurt business
Chattanooga has made great strides in revitalizing our downtown. Our aquarium is the finest in the Southeast. We have been trying with the rest of the country to recover from our economic downturn.
What a great way to help — let’s nearly double the downtown parking rates! Great idea; that will really draw people downtown.
Other vital services are regulated for the public good. Can our City Council, which represents us, not exert any control to protect our downtown business owners? Let us not reward such unmitigated greed; how about a new city tax on parking lots?
KEN RENTZSCH
Hixson
Davis should have voiced opposition
If Rep. Lincoln Davis’ vote was needed to pass the health care bill, he would have voted yes. The House leadership made sure they had enough votes to pass a bill. Once that was assured, they released the other Democrats to vote the way their constituents want the vote to go.
If Lincoln Davis was so against the health care bill, why did he not take to the floor of the House to rail against it? Where were his press releases advocating against it? All we got was “silence.”
Remember the first vote of every new Congress is to elect the Democratic leader. Davis voted for Nancy Pelosi as the Democratic leader. The 4th Congressional District deserves a change we can believe in. Two words that do not belong together are “career politician.”
BILL HONEA
Crossville, Tenn.
Change means loss of freedom
Two obvious questions need to be asked in the wake of the ObamaCare “victory”: who lost, and, if we can be forced to buy health insurance, what else can we be forced to do?
But first consider the following juxtaposition:
Fidel Castro celebrating ObamaCare, with its loss of freedom, threats and socialism, while all the heroic Americans who died fighting against everything Fidel Castro stands for spin in their graves.
Of course, the answers to the questions are: The American citizen, and, anything they want to.
Given those troubling answers, it was particularly disturbing to watch the Democrats high five each other, yuck it up and grin during their “victory” celebration.
The president and the Democrats have taken their usual cowardly approach by attacking personally anyone who expresses alarm at the obvious loss of freedom. Some Democrats have even labeled their critics as terrorists and racists.
Maybe freedom of speech is next to go.
When bad guys, like Castro, win and applaud our president, and when hope has to be enforced with threats of prison and confiscation of income, and change means the loss of freedom, then we’re in deep trouble.
FRANCIS SANTAQUILANI
Littlefield push sounds familiar
I have noticed that there seems to be a great similarity between the way that President Obama pushed through the health care “reform” bill and the way that Mayor Ron Littlefield is attempting to push through consolidated government for the county and the city.
First, there was the “they made an agreement” argument that we heard when he started his tirade for annexing more and more county areas into the city.
Then there was the “it’s not fair to the residents of the city” argument that claimed that all the folks in the city were being double taxed.
Now we know that the city couldn’t make the school system work, so they gave up and passed it on to the county. They also couldn’t make the EMT/ambulance service work and passed that on to the county as well. Now it looks as though they want to abdicate the police services as well and have the sheriff run the law enforcement for the city.
Hey, with consolidated government, Mr. Littlefield could have a shot at running for another office! How about king of the county?
STEVE ROBINSON
Ooltewah
You get what you vote for
How impatient the Americans are and how quickly they forget. They are willing to change allegiance without really giving “change a chance.”
If the Americans are willing to vote the Democrats out of office in November, then they will get everything they deserve.
Do they not remember the Bush administration with the Republican-led Congress for nearly eight years? Do they not remember who got us into this economic mess in the first place?
Do the Republicans have any viable answers to this economic mess we are in? No, they don’t. Unless you want to count more and more tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
Let’s just turn it over to that bunch again. What a great plan!
KAY PFEIFLE
Put climate fire out now
Climate change has been occurring for billions of years, since “long before human beings created industrial societies or drove SUVs” (Thomas Sowell, April 5, Times Free Press). Scientists have known about earth’s changing climate since long before Mr. Sowell was born. And silly Republican talking points are timeless.
Forest fires have been occurring since long before human beings created industrial societies or invented matches, but when the forest is burning responsible people try to put the fire out. We don’t argue about what started the fire, as the flames spread and the land is consumed. We don’t say that since lightning can cause fires, we might as well throw burning matches out the window, too.
Our civilization began to make great strides some 500 generations ago, after the last Ice Age ended and the world entered a time of relatively stable climate, and human beings discovered agriculture and developed permanent settlements. Most scientists believe that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from whatever sources, will make the earth less hospitable to our way of life than it has been for a very long time. We should put the fire out now, while we still can.
ROBERT L. FAST
Obama enlarging the government
If you are paying attention it is easy to understand the future that Obama and the Democrats are creating for Americans.
It is a future of growing government.
He will pay public employees more for the same job than private employees.
Like the Congress and the president, many of those workers will not have to worry about ObamaCare. They are exempt from the regulations. They will have all of us pay for their income and benefits (as long as there are enough taxpayers). They can sit in their cubicles and make decisions that will decide how we live our lives by controlling health care, raising taxes, controlling energy production and usage, and they can decide to control the air we exhale since they have made it a deadly gas.
Obama tells us to sit down and be quiet because we are not just expressing our opinions, we are now radicals who do not fall into line with his regime. Americans are not workers who will fall into line with the state.
Our economic system is based on capitalism, not socialism. We cannot have a jobs-producing economy with central planning. We see how that works with General Motors Corp. or the Postal Service.
BRUCE CALDWELL
Signal Mountain