Published: March 16, 2008 07:05 pm            

Letters to the editor - Monday, March 17, 2008

Checks should be in our pockets

Howard County homeowners that paid property taxes in 2007 should have received a rebate check. The State of Indiana sent Howard County a little over $3 million to give back to homeowners. The state sent that money back in November 2007.

I have a couple of concerns. Larger counties that did not finish their work on time last year have already sent out the checks. Many counties around us that had tax bills sent later than Howard County had sent our bills in 2007 have already sent the rebate checks. Why is this?

I’m sure that $3 million has drawn a significant amount of interest in just over four months. Will the interest be included in the rebate to the homeowner? Or is the county simply using our money to generate income at our expense? If so, is that a tax on our rebate check?

Our money continues to sit in a bank in Howard County when it should be in our pockets. It’s time for the rebate checks to be in the hands of the homeowners.

Lance Rice

Russiaville

Vietnam vet, 48, defies all logic

Enough already! It’s time to stop associating the ills of today’s society with the “large knife [wielding] 48-year-old man [who] was possibly having some sort of hallucination related to past service in Vietnam,” in the Tribune news story Thursday, March 13.

Accolades to the new Sheriff Deputy Miller for using his own good judgment and the training skills taught by the Sheriff’s Department/Police Academy.

However, one might question the math skills and common sense of whomever released that news story, and ponder who in fact was “hallucinating?” It’s simple math: The last American troops were pulled out of Vietnam in 1973. This “48-year-old man” would have been 13 years old if he had served in Vietnam during 1973.

To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. military was not drafting young men out of junior high school in that war, though it may get to that with our current military involvement in Iraq.

Perhaps this sensationalized and irresponsible story could have been more appropriately placed under the title “News of the Weird” or the cartoon “Bizarro.”

The Vietnam War is over, folks ... give it and that veteran a rest!

Gary Minnich

Sharpsville

Vote for candidate who’ll kill NAFTA

We are faced with a rather curious problem heretofore unprecedented. What is that problem? More about that a bit later. But first, some history.

William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, campaigned for the office in 1992, was elected and served two consecutive terms from Jan. 20, 1993 to Jan. 20, 2001. In December of 1992, the United States, Canada and Mexico met, at which time former President George Herbert Walker Bush of the U.S., signed NAFTA into law.

NAFTA actually took effect on Jan. 1, 1994, during President Clinton’s first term. He had made passage of NAFTA a major priority during his first year in office. Now, that unprecedented problem that I mentioned earlier.

Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton, senator from New York, current potential candidate for president of the United States, and wife of William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd president of the United States.

Following the 1993 enactment of NAFTA, our job climate went sideways. Employers who heretofore had paid high wages and decent pensions, had provided a measure of job security and health care, suddenly began to pay more attention to their bottom line, and had less consideration for the loyal employees, without whom their businesses could have flourished.

What followed was the start of an exodus of high-paying jobs to foreign soil, where they could pay lower wages with few, if any, benefits. As a result, many former job sites in effect became ghost towns.

Recently I have been hearing stirrings of discontent, talk of having NAFTA repealed. Face it, NAFTA has, on balance, not been good for our country. So, can it be done, can NAFTA be repealed? Once repealed, can our jobs be brought back to U.S. soil?

I would like to think it possible, but ask yourself, if Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton, our 42nd president, who was and presumably still is pro-NAFTA, wins the election, how eager would she be in terms of repealing NAFTA? It is something to ponder.

Personally, I do not want her as our 44th president of the United States. Not because she is a woman but because she is too close to our 42nd president, William Jefferson Clinton.

First, elect an anti-NAFTA president, get NAFTA repealed, then push, hard, for the return of our jobs to U.S. soil.

Kenneth Crockett

Kokomo

        

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