Are Americans getting value in the presidency?
As a kid growing up in Louisiana I learned a lot from my elders. Much of what they taught me was about lessons they had learned the hard way. One of those lessons was "you get what you pay for."
A perfect example of this is President Trump. He is donating the salary that goes with his position. That's right -- we taxpayers are not paying him a salary. He is now in the third year of his presidency. Are we getting a bargain?
The answer depends on who you talk to.
The so-called fake media will say he will cost our children, their children, their children, and their children's children a chance to have a better life than their parents. Why? Simple. Because our country's debt will have reached the point where paying the interest on our national debt will be so large that their generation will have to pay the highest tax rates in history, and there will be no funds for other than bare necessities. The timing could not be worse! A sample of the challenges we are passing on to them includes: quickly deteriorating infrastructure (roads, bridges, airports, mass transit systems, electrical power grids, sewage and water systems, etc.); an educational system (from pre-school through graduate school) that will need fundamental changes to prepare the next generation to work and prosper in a global economy; changes in our environment that will threaten the world's survival; an ineffective and inefficient health care system made worse by the way we eat and our failure to take care of our physical well-being; and threats to our security from Russia, North Korea and numerous Middle East countries.
In contrast, the "real" media (Fox) view things very differently. From their perspective the Trump Republican tax cuts will, in the short term, put more money in almost everyone's pocket and in the long term will provide enough stimulus to the economy to eliminate the national debt. I, and at least 95 percent of the country's economists, do not support this approach.
The country is in desperate need of a real leader -- someone we trust, who can inspire us, who can bring us together, someone who can get Congress (and us) to put aside partisan politics and confront the greatest challenges our country has faced since WWII.
We are in need of a leader who can help us fashion a vision for the future, a plan for achieving it and who can inspire us to make changes today that will ensure the next generations have the same or better opportunities than we did.
So, is our bargain president a real bargain or are we getting what we paid for?
Jim Hammons
Fayetteville
Better ways to spend border wall billions
Let's put the billions for the Mexico/U.S. border wall to use in our own country. For our veterans we could build more V.A. hospitals. About 20 of our veterans commit suicide each day in the U.S. Train service animals. Build more long-term facilities for treatment of PTSD and drug use. Build more schools across the U.S., bringing classrooms to 15 students each instead 30 children per classroom. Create a program similar to the Army Corps of Engineers for lasting positive effects in our country. Provide more officers for our police and fire departments. In all emergencies they are here for the safety of each of us and our children. Use the billions to build new roads and underground plumbing all over our country.
Our national emergencies are North Korea, Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.
Pat Moore
Fayetteville
Editorial on 03/20/2019