To the editor:
I am a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. In my long experience dealing with the government I have never before been so concerned with the direction our leaders are taking this country.
Even though I watched as the first President Bush took us into the first Gulf War and we ended that war feeling very victorious; we really didn’t meet all of our objectives, it was a great stalemate. Sure there were casualties and losses on both sides, but the first President Bush was wise enough to realize that going into Iraq and being strong handed was not the direction to go.
Next I watched as we had a few turbulent but very good years with President Clinton, but in the end of his eight years we witnessed prosperity like almost never before. For the first time in a long time, we ended with a surplus and everything was looking up for the country.
Then we all stood by and watched as the second President Bush first stole the presidency and then led our country down the tube from there. I believe that if we were never attacked on 9/11 that President Bush would have done the same as his father and been a one term president, but we were attacked and he rightly sent our troops into Afghanistan to hunt down the terrorists led by Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden. But instead of continuing to pursue the folks that attacked us, he redirected our troops and budget to fight a country that had nothing to do with attacking us and masked the evil and underhanded attack by saying we were looking for weapons of mass destruction that must have been buried or hidden somewhere. Besides bankrupting our budget and killing thousands and wounding tens of thousands of our great and honorable service members, not to mention the thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis that were also killed and wounded, the only thing we found, was an old man in a hole in the ground.
I know Sadam Hussein was an evil man, but I don’t think it should be our job and we shouldn’t be going around hunting down and killing all evil leaders of other countries! That would be a full-time job all by itself. I think President Bush decided early on and had his henchmen led us in the wrong direction, attacking Iraq, spending billions and trillions of our hard earned money, and all the while sending our country to the brink of destruction.
Remember that surplus that President Clinton handed President Bush? Well that is long gone, replaced by a great deficit. Additionally, while I’m thinking about it, wasn’t it just a coincidence that we all received a surplus check right before President Bush’s second presidential election, I wonder how many millions it cost to buy that election.
On the other hand President Barack Obama was handed a holy mess when he took over, not a surplus. Unemployment high, inflation rampant, budget overextended, fighting two wars. What did President Obama do, he met the challenges head on, he has been a great leader and has made some tough decisions while still making and brokering deals when he’s had to, he has been the most bi-partisan president in my memory. It took President Obama only two years to find Osama Bin Laden, where President Bush couldn’t find this man living right beside our allies in Pakistan for seven years.
The problem President Obama faces is really our (the citizens) fault, we (the Democrats) stayed home during the midterm elections, probably because we were happy with the fact that we had a president and control of both houses of Congress. What this did is it allowed Republicans to take control of Congress and ever since, they (Tea Party Republicans especially) think that the public has given them a golden ticket to do whatever they want to do.
A while ago they thought they could force their balanced budget amendment into law without needing the Senate’s approval and not being signed by the President either, boy were they mistaken. I remember seeing them chanting shut it down, shut it down, when they were threatening to shut down the U.S. government, all the while knowing their jobs and incomes were secure, while thousands of Americans were facing the possibility of a government shutdown, and subsequently no work and no pay. Fortunately, the President and the level-headed thinking leaders found a way to avoid the shutdown at the eleventh hour.
I know this will probably get resolved in the eleventh hour as well. The Tea Party Republicans, Eric Cantor and Michele Bachman, keep spouting off that they know what’s best for the country, and refusing to concede anything, I remember this phrase “Either you’re with us or your against us.” For them there is no middle ground and they are unwilling to give one inch and that should be their jobs as politicians to find a middle ground where most folks will agree.
The fix they think is to take from the poor to feed the rich. They think that the only way to balance a budget is to cut program spending like welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other government-run programs like the one my parents are involved in — the Senior Companion Program. Instead of asking the super rich (which by the way most politicians are part of) to assist us, they insist on taking money from our low-income Americans who are struggling week to week just to make ends meet. Believe me I’m sure our super rich folks wouldn’t mind giving a little more to help our dear country out; they probably won’t even notice the difference.
I know cuts probably need to be made, but that’s not the only way we are going to pay for years and years of mismanagement, combined with paying for two wars. The Republicans keep saying they need to do the same thing a family does when times are tight and that is to cut expenses, but that’s not the only thing they can do and a lot of times someone in the family will take on a part-time job to bolster their income while also cutting back expenses. To me that’s the only way to take care of this situation, cut expenses while also trying to bolster our income.
To me it looks all too much like an old cartoon I used to watch when I was a child. I see Congressman Cantor in his cave with his professor’s suit on, putting together the ACME bomb to finally get that darn Road Runner. Didn’t the Coyote always think he was smarter than everyone and what he was doing was right and he knew way more than everyone else including that darn Road Runner? Didn’t he constantly find himself falling over that cliff with the bomb he built along with a boulder to top it all off for good measure, while the silly Road Runner ran off safe and sound. Unfortunately for us, the bomb he’s working on is the U.S. budget and it’s us who will fall once he completes it. Hopefully we will remember all this folly when it comes time for elections again.
Lastly, personally I always thought a good cup of Democratic American coffee tasted a whole lot better than any bitter Republican British tea anyway. We need to ensure we elect people that will be for and work for the U.S. people, not just for the wealthy people.
Karl J. Saucier Sr.
Caribou
