Still government control

Last week, John Kinnaird wrote a great letter regarding what we are facing with the Obama administration; however, I am writing in response to Nacogdoches County Democrat Party Chairman Stephen Wright's dissenting letter printed in Sunday's paper.

First, I thought it was a joke when they announced Obama was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Granted, with previous winners like a Palestinian terrorist, a weak and incompetent former president and a "the sky is falling" environmental wacko global warming (oops — that's proved wrong so now it's referred to as climate change) fear-mongerer former vice-president as recipients, I shouldn't have been surprised at this nomination. I would contend that if Obama deserves any Nobel Prize it should be in economics, since he is trying to collapse our free-market system for European style socialism, which the Nobel Committee would endorse.

Regarding lumping liberals, progressives, socialists, communists and fascists together, all of those ideologies are anti-conservative, unconstitutional and have one other major thing in common — they all seek expanded power for government at the expense of individual liberties. Wright scoffs at the "socialist" label but look at what is going on in our country. The Obama administration has seized control of major portions of our banking industry and is now dictating national banking policy according to centralized planning instead of the ebb and flow of the free market. These policies led to a credit crunch that has collapsed a major portion of our auto industry. Hundreds of dealerships were forced to close on the orders of Obama's czars. Billions of dollars were sucked out of the private sector economy as those dealerships and supporting and secondary businesses had to spend long-term planning capital to keep their doors open.

The health-care reform legislation pushed by Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress is socialized medicine that, if passed, will destroy the greatest health-care system in the world. Health care's problems can be solved with free-market solutions such as long-term health-care accounts controlled by the individual. Tort reform will eliminate a major expense for every practicing physician. With health care, as well as all policies pushed by Washington politicians, look at the end result. It is centralizing power in Washington at the expense of individual liberties and those powers designated to the states.

Mr. Wright gave several reasons for the ascendency of the Democrat Party in the last few elections. I would contend that the main reason for this is that the Republican Party leadership, including President Bush, lost sight of those small-government, conservative principles and traditional values that got them elected and surrendered to Washington, D.C. ,power questing. As far as improving the economy, how can you expect the private sector and especially small businesses to hire new employees when they see the possibilty of staggering taxation on the job producers, cap and trade policies that would more than triple energy costs and escalating federal mandates on worker's benefits. Regarding universal health care, you keep costs down by making each person responsible for their own health-care needs. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free. Finally, Obama's "restoring our good image in the world" consisted of an apology tour and a trashing of many of our traditional allies.

The Republican Party is not the "party of no" — they offered ideas on health care — they suggested health savings accounts, tort reform, direct tax cuts and other great ideas that empowers the people to control their lives and health care choices, not Washington. Remember, leftist policies, regardless of its label, empowers government to control our lives.

Alan Boyd

491 CR 6103

Nichols: What have the Republicans done for me?

I need to be doing other things, but I think its time to answer letters that are being printed in the The Daily Sentinel that are nothing but what I call running of the mouth. They state no facts at all to back up what they are saying. I have before me a list of Democrats' accomplishments.

If anyone can come up with one thing the Republicans have done for me, I would like to know what it is.

A president and his Republican aides got an agreement with the communist government of China for the manufacturers of the United States of America to move their plants to China. No longer did the communists have to worry about how they were going to feed a billion people.

President Reagan and the business people of the United States did it for them. People lost cars and homes, and some lost everything they owned. I lost a good job I had for 30 years. People were camped out in rest areas under bridges, just about anywhere they could get out of the cold. And every week the Dallas paper had a list of homes the government had repossessed. This continued, until Clinton was elected. I remember the great Depression of the '30s, when Hoover and the Republicans did nothing to help. In other words, they left us to twist in the wind, so to speak. It was stated on TV news a while back that 1 percent of the people of the United States own one third of the wealth. Five percent own 95 percent. If government is not to help people, why have government? Are 95 percent of the people to be slaves of the 5 percent? The TV and newspapers refer to the states as being red states and blue. No one has to take my word for what I write. It can always be checked out. The majority of the people living in the red states are living in poverty. In the latter 1990s, a story in The Daily Sentinel reported the average wage of the people working in the state of Texas. Out of 254 counties, there were only nine counties in which people were above the national poverty average.

Hall E. Nichols

Cushing