Letter to the Editor - Southern Style

Republican greed | TimesDaily.com | Florence, AL:

Published: July 17. 2006 3:30AM

To the editor:

One in four U.S. jobs pays less than poverty-level income. Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent -- 37 million Americans -- are officially poor.

Bush's tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700. Bush has diverted $750 million to 'healthy marriages' by shifting funds from social services, mostly childcare.

Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50 percent.

A series of related statistics -- starting with the news that two out of three new jobs are in the suburbs -- shows how the poor are further disadvantaged in the job hunt by lack of public or private transportation.

It seems that we've seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism -- it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal's editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?

It is discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair. 'Justice for all' seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the 'lottery of life' in ways we don't even know about yet.

The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won't see the full consequences of this careless legislation for years, but it is starting to affect us already.

Alabamians who have to depend on minimum wage and college loans to go to school, and Alabamians who are just barely getting by from one paycheck to the next, I want to bring it to your attention that you need to register to vote. Hopefully, the Democrats will get someone to run against Senators Shelby and Sessions when their terms are up. Shelby and Sessions voted to keep you poor and the rich richer.

I hope and pray that our good Christian people will not fall for the propaganda that the Republicans are the God party again, and wake up to the fact that the Republicans only used God to get votes!

Rhonda B***

Tuscumbia