Who knows what Americans want?

Who knows what Americans want?

I am fed up with the “Party of the affluent” in their zeal to garner the administration of our once greatest country in the world. They keep expounding on and on about (in their view) about “what the American people want.” Just what segment of the American people are they referring to?

The over-bloated fat cats keep talking about cutting entitlements and multimillion dollar golden-parachute pensions while the companies they represent flounder and go bankrupt.

They justify this by telling the press and anyone else gullible enough to fall for their reasoning that their contracts justify their actions and claim that they deserve their outrageous bonuses. If they are correct, I would like to know how they could take away the benefits that the unions had fought long and hard to win in the contracts agreed to between members and the companies they worked for.

The retirees and pensioners have not had a cost-of-living increase in more than three years. The moguls running the oil companies keep raising the cost of energy by leaps and bounds. The Republicans cannot have a semblance of conscience or fair play in proclaiming, “that is what the American people want!”

If the fat cats truly want to cut the deficit, why don’t they put their money where their mouths are and cut their own fat paychecks by about 50 percent? They keep criticizing President Obama for his ideas that are long overdue, like a national comprehensive health reform bill. Today we stand alone in the industrialized world because we lack such a program. The fat cats in Washington have made sure that they are well taken care of as far as health and pensions are concerned. That is truly what the American people want.

Benjamin R. Paulsey Jr., Warren