Fiscal sanity

Steadily reducing our deficit is imperative. Our country’s leaders should be working to reduce our deficit with each and every budget that is passed. Hard choices will be required, but please don’t cause further harm to the most vulnerable citizens in our country.

I hope our leaders, from the local level all the way through the national level, will work tirelessly to ensure that more people move out of poverty. We should make sure no one goes hungry. We should educate our children from pre-school through college. This education should include important life skills to help them find employment in the 21st century job market. We should provide affordable housing so that families do not find themselves homeless.

Use real facts concerning the amount of revenue coming in to the government and make a realistic budget based on actual funds available now; don’t base the budget on “assumptions” of what revenue might be available at some future time. Make cuts to military spending, put the Wall on hold, and use and strengthen policies and programs already in place concerning immigration while working on immigration reforms.

Keep the NAFTA agreement, since Canada and Mexico buy more U.S. exports than anyone else. If Mexico can provide jobs for its citizens, that should help reduce the need to cross the border for work.

Why shouldn’t wealthy people pay more in taxes? Haven’t they benefited the most from what America offers? Are they not able to feed and house themselves and provide an inheritance for their children much more easily than someone earning minimum wage?

Let’s stop the ever-expanding gaps between the rich and the middle class and the poor. What kind of country do we want to be? Don’t we want life, liberty and justice for all?

Grateful

My mother passed into heaven on Monday morning. And my brother and I have been doing the final arrangements this week.

My husband and I chose Vance Memorial because of how the former owner Leslie Vance handled another veteran's remains. He took it upon himself to make sure the Marine was taken care of and transported to Fort Mitchell, when there were limited funds available.

Seeing that warmth toward a fellow veteran, my husband and I decided to pre-plan our arrangements so we would be prepared. My mother also did this so the transition would be easier on the family, with most of the details already taken care of. I highly recommend doing this.

My mother had been in a nursing home for almost a year. She did not look very good at all. The work they did at Vance was nothing short of a miracle. She looked wonderful. Plus the DVD of the pictures we submitted was put together as if my mother was guiding the individual making it. We appreciate how smoothly everything went, and wanted to formally thank them one more time.

My mother was 92. But it is really never too early to plan for the future, because costs only go up. So plan early.

Patriotic Act?

Every day an average of 12 veterans commit suicide with guns. How has our House of Representatives confronted this horrific problem? Why, they passed HR1184, the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, which exempts veterans who have been identified as having mental issues from the National Instant Background Check database for weapon purchases. It is now easier for them to buy a weapon.

While this earns our elected representatives a big thumbs-up from the NRA, it means the most vulnerable veterans, who should be receiving care for PTSD or other mental health issues, are instead being given an assist in being able to purchase a weapon and kill themselves. What a frighteningly self-serving action by the House.

Easy to predict

The 2016 election was all about the public being dissatisfied with traditional politics. That has been true for the last few elections. And that is why Drew Ferguson got elected representing this district.

Democrats are now complaining about Trump, but they helped elect him by picking a paranoid corporate shill rather than a populist.

Michael Moore said this would happen all along. And, so did I, in print.

In conversations with Democrats, I pointed out many of Clinton’s flaws. She (a) was tone deaf, ignoring both her advisers and the public; (b) did a horrible job with the media; (c) was paranoid and secretive; (d) failed to understand the left-wing populist movement in her party; and (e) abandoned her “Four Fights” strategy in 2015.

This last point may have been the most important. No one knew what Clinton really stood for, although they knew she got $100 million giving speeches to Wall Street and others.

As stated in a 10-16 Time piece, the “Four Fights” strategy (her own thoughts) was designed to focus on “the economy; stronger families; national security; and getting money out of politics.”

If she had run on this plank, versus “Trump is worse than I am,” she would have won the election.

This story was originally published June 1, 2017 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Fiscal sanity."