Published: September 24, 2008 09:15 pm            

Letters to the editor - Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008

Election 2006, economy linked

With the constant barrage from the Democratic congressional and presidential races about having four more years of Bush, I would like to bring a fact-check to bare on the issue. I am rather weary of hearing one side to the story.

While I am not responding to a specific article or tendency I have seen in the KT, I would still like my voice heard by readers, though I know it exceeds the preference for word count.

I have heard, and done some research to verify, that we are being fed some lines of thought that just don’t have their basis in contextual fact. Thought your other readers should be aware of the following:

A little over one year ago, we understand that consumer confidence stood at a two-and-one-half year high. We also remember (most of us) that regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon. Though it is different for Kokomo, with its heavy manufacturing job base, the national unemployment rate was 4.5 percent.

But Americans wanted a change, or so the results at the polls told us. Fair enough. You win some, and you lose some.

We who generally do not vote for Democrats, except where an exceptional Democrat comes along, may have lost the vote in 2006, but I think as a nation we are the collective loser when you consider that since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006, we have seen consumer confidence plummet. We have watched and experienced the rise of the cost of regular gasoline soaring to more than $3.50 a gallon. The national unemployment rate is up to 5 percent (I’m told that is a 10 percent increase, though I admit the math there baffles me a bit – I just know there are more unemployed out there now since before the 2006 elections).

Speaking of investments, we have watched American households see $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses). This next one hits me as a homeowner: I and fellow Americans have seen our collective home equity drop by $1.2 trillion.

As I walk regularly in my neighborhood, I see the abandoned houses with the orange stickers in the front windows, so it isn’t surprising to see that 1 percent of American homes are in foreclosure.

So America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! The one thing that I fail to see pointed out regularly in your paper, or in other media outlets, is that it’s Congress that makes law and authorizes spending, and is supposed to regulate things, not the president. He has to work with what’s handed to him.

For him to veto some bills because there are some egregious items of pork and earmarks, he might knock out some really important item because they won’t let issues come up on their own.

Rick Glover Sr.

Kokomo

        

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