To the editor:
I see more and more problems with today’s economy. Gas prices are at an all-time high. Food is almost unobtainable, the cost of medical treatment is absurd and rent for a single family three-bedroom apartment or house is astronomical. Back in the day when I was a youth, I remember when the price of a gallon of gas was less than a dollar and diesel fuel was even cheaper still. A home was affordable to just about anyone with a job. Unemployment was at an all-time low as opposed to today’s rate of unemployment. Back then, anyone who wanted a job could get one. Nowadays, jobs are as scarce as the dinosaurs.
We used to drill our own oil, make our own steel and manufacture our own products. Our government let us make our own decisions and our own mistakes. There was a car in every driveway, and families didn’t need two or three incomes to make ends meet just to survive.
Then one day, someone came up with the bright idea to outsource all of our jobs and send our economy into a tailspin that we almost certainly not going to stop. We no longer drill for our own oil, make our own steel nor do we refine our own gas or other fuels. We no longer have a national surplus as we did back then. We do however have a huge national debt of trillions of dollars that we will never be able to dig out from under as long as we continue on this downward spiral we are on.
We need a new Administration in the White House, the House of Representatives and Congress. We need to stop supporting every other country that asks, and start collecting on the debts that are owed to us. We need to stop with the big business bailouts, and stop bailing out every country that has debts.
I, Mr. American, have a solution to our economy’s plight. First, we need to forget about Mr. Obama’s move forward plan. Second, we need to start opening our rock quarries and our steel mills. Third, start drilling our own oil and reopen our oil refineries and start making our own gas and other fuels. We need to stop selling our oil reserves to the Arabs and then buy our fuels back from them for more than we were paid for our oil. We need to stop buying cheap (material and labor) foreign-made items, and start buying American-made goods instead. American-made autos, American-made textiles, American-produced fuels. This will not only bring down the costs of our everyday living needs, but will also put millions of able bodied Americans back to work. This in turn, through more collected taxes, would reduce our national debt considerably.
Our government has and is making all of our decisions for us. From cigarettes that go out unless you constantly puff on them (because a few smokers fell asleep with a lighted cigarette), smoking bans in all public buildings such as restaurants, and higher taxes placed on tobacco products, yet very little tax on alcohol
My point here is that this country is in a shambles and we, the American public, need to stand up and tell our government that we have had enough of them controlling our lives. And we need to stand up and stop sending our hard earned money to foreign countries.
Bruce J. Bush
Houlton
