Don’t be fooled by D.C. tricks

Don’t be fooled by D.C. tricks

Here we go again, with a re- peat of last year’s million dollar vacation and the promise of a jobs bill when “I” get back to the White House.

I don’t remember the first one, which means if it existed, it didn’t work. A hidden aspect of all the failed programs of the past is the phony payroll tax reduction by two percent.

Something about that didn’t ring true, until U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan clarified that the payroll tax reduction is really a reduction of the tax contribution by the employee to Social Security. They are complaining about SS getting into trouble with regard to liquidity and then they undermine it.

Then they try to trick the business community with a $2,500 dollar tax credit for each job. That makes no fiscal sense: Spend $50,000 to get $2,500, sounds to me like a net loss of $47,500 dollars, which hurts the economy and jobs.

Wake up, people.

Daniel Victor Bienko, Canfield

Bickering like fifth-graders

When George W. Bush Took office, President Clinton had left the country with a balanced budget. In a few short months, President Bush put us back in the red and kept us there.

He handed the United States, off with the biggest debt ever and all the jobs he helped move out of country. That was a major cause of the automakers’ trouble: Few were left who still had a job that allowed them to buy a car.

In a few years, people are blaming our president for not fixing the problems that Bush caused.

Then we had this national debt problem, during which one Republican that his plan was the only plan. He sounded like my fifth grade daughter when she had a fight with other fifth-grade girls.

When we are in the biggest debt that this country has ever seen, how can they be talking about giving money back to any taxpayer?

In my house, I pay my bills first. Is my house run that much better than the federal government?

People, we need to wake up and get rid of elected officials who are more concerned about looking good by giving fluff away than solving this country’s problems.

David Biller, Youngstown

A new voice at City Hall

While attending a meeting of the Brownlee Woods Neighborhood group, I was impressed with our new mayor, Chuck Sammarone.

He seems to be endowed with a great deal of common sense in his approach to managing the activities of city government.

He mentioned that city government is a service. This is a perspective that appears to have been lacking in the past few administrations. Mr. Mayor appears to be a service-oriented person. His comments indicated that his whole government career has been geared to just that, providing the service that residents are paying to have. So many times we as residents have been frustrated by the lack of cooperation we have received in the past.

Our mayor is encouraging us to look forward and not backward. We all know that he cannot be held accountable for what prior administration did or did not do. Let’s turn the page and give our mayor our unequivocal support.

Delores T. Womack, Youngstown

Why stop at 16 and 17?

Texas Governor and Republi- can presidential contender Rick Perry says he’d like to see the 16th and 17th amendments repealed. Why not examine the whole Constitution in a new constitutional convention that takes into account, for example, corporate super-citizenship, the influence of mass media, and more?

Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe recognized landed interests. They’d have had a harder time with mobile capital and consumer intangibles, such as factories and America’s unique group health insurance. The premiums for the latter are a sort of deeply regressive, lobbyist-rigged excise tax used nowhere else. The idea that American manufacturers would deliberately unbolt their factories to profitably secede from the group health insurance “excise tax”, while at the same time increasing shareholder wealth may not have occurred to the founders.

Likewise with press freedom, where Jefferson and Monroe saw costly broadsheets and pamphlets sold to the 18th century’s relatively few active readers within a very limited franchise, a tiny government, and a homogenous English-derived culture. Does it make any difference that’s been displaced in the 21st century by something different?

The 18th century’s frontiersmen were out of the loop; the 21st century’s suburban voters are just plain looped. Today’s extra-Constitutional lobbies and advertising agencies invent a reality that’s pitched to their inner demographic, and then write the legislation that suits them. Health care change is more likely to be dictated by Beijing, than by Washington rhetoric, unless something is done soon.

So, Gov. Perry, here’s my vote for a new constitutional convention. At that convention you really will want to look for a national alternative to group health insurance before the decision is forced on you anyway by a declining dollar.

Jack Labusch, Niles

Battle of givers and takers

There are two types of peo- ple — takers and givers. Takers accept no as an answer only when an equal but opposite force demands it. Gov. Kasich offered to compromise on Senate Bill 5 only when it became clear to him that the voters might actually vote to repeal this unpopular bill. The governor, always the taker, met his match.

Political parties try to convince voters that their concerns are of primary concern to them while the real intent is staying or getting into office. U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland is trying to get onto the ballot in another state for fear that he will be unemployed when Ohio’s congressional districts are redrawn. I was at a Serbian picnic in Parma recently and one of the workers told me that many people in the district feel angry and betrayed. Betrayal seems to be the operative word of the day.

Jobs have been on a steady decline for years, products from overseas are sold way below their cost, banks are back to their usual practices that drove this country to the brink before, and middle class families in particular have been devastated. Millions of unemployed people will agree that free trade has a very steep price.

About a year before the Supreme Court ruling of allowing unlimited corporate donations in elections, Chief Justice Roberts was on record stating that elections have always been about money. The basis for their decision was the right of free speech. Those who can pay can play.

Our president will visit the three 9/11 sights in September. Both houses of Congress should accompany him on that trip, especially to the Flight 93 crash site. It symbolizes an event in which average Americans fought back to prevent a tragedy from occurring. The passengers and crew on that plane gave their all, and it should serve as a reminder to us what courage really is.

The country is in the midst of another great tragedy in which millions of lives have been destroyed. You cannot buy courage or character; either you possess them or you don’t.

A grass-roots movement is needed to restore our government to one that is of the people, by the people and for the people.

God bless America and the givers of this world.

Gerald Heitkamp, Youngstown