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Letters To The Editor

Stop the cuts

While President Trump and his allies continue to justify their economic policies as necessary to address the national debt and deficit, they simultaneously support a budget projected by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the deficit by an estimated $6 trillion. Why? To fund Trump’s tax plan, which disproportionately benefits billionaires. Meanwhile, here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we are being asked to shoulder devastating cuts to vital public services. These include: • Closure of Social Security Administration and Bureau of Indian Affairs offices. • Closure of ...

No kings in 1776 and no kings today

Will you join me, and millions of other patriotic Americans, in a protest for democracy, and against tyranny, by peacefully demonstrating in the streets, on Saturday, June 14, Flag Day, for the “No Kings” mass protest? Ordinary people “NO” to the King of England in the Revolutionary War and in 1776 founded this nation based on a commitment to each other to have a government where citizens are equal before the law, have a say in the government, and have the right to a fair share of resources. We, the people grant authority to the Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary ...

Citizen’s choice

If you don’t know about Zion National Park’s Angels Landing hike, do a search. To me the narrow path represents democracy’s journey and steel safety chain represents our Constitution, with one slip you plunge into either extreme left or right authoritarianism. After Soviet Union extreme-left authoritarian ideology ended, they briefly establish Russian democracy in the 1990s. Only to plunge into extreme-right authoritarian ideology. Athens Greece is the birthplace of democracy (507 BCE), but lasted only two centuries. Their democracy failed to constrain the worst impulses of ...

What’s right and wrong

Congress says big cuts are needed. Where can we save money? What can we do without? And I wonder, where do we get more income? Big program cuts are only needed because Congress wants to cut government income by extending / expanding huge tax cuts for corporations and top income earners. They are also gutting the IRS, so individuals and corporations are less likely to be accountable and may not pay what they owe. Strange, when you or I have a budget problem, we don’t begin by cutting income and don’t forget to see if our paycheck was deposited. Who benefits and what do we get ...

Who cares about whom?

Congress is considering a bill that would cut millions of dollars from Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and the Veterans Administration health services. President Trump, U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, and others want us to think this is cutting “waste, fraud and abuse.” But it is actually cutting real health care for real people, including our neighbors in the Upper Peninsula. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 15 million Americans will lose their health care coverage if the current reconciliation bill is passed by ...

Matter of priorities

I am writing to suggest our elected officials are the ones destroying our country. Does not matter whether they are Democrats or Republican; they are both failing us. When it comes to priorities, I feel their priorities should be: 1. The country should come 1st and any new law or budget should put country first. 2. Next our elected officials’ priorities should be their constituent. 3. After 1 and 2 are fulfilled, they could address everything else. The problem seems to be our elected officials seem to put keeping their jobs as priority number 1. If you are an elected ...