I finally got that lte published in Mason County News:
Changing Directions

In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked:

Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?

Americans answered by electing Reagan by a wide margin over Jimmy Carter.

But 28 years later, the laissez fair economic policies of de-regulation and tax cutting of conservative Republicans have now shown that they were much more successful as campaign promises (getting them elected and re-elected) than they were as governing principals and policies. We now are 10 trillion in debt and our Republican President tells us that our financial institutions require government bailouts to the tune of $700 billion.

John McCain started his presidential campaign claiming to be a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. His stump speeches never mention Reagan anymore. Now he claims to be the next Teddy Roosevelt. This is a very misleading! Historians say that Teddy was a trustbuster and practically invented the inheritance tax, whereas McCain loves corporations so much he still wants to cut their taxes more and he certainly is against any inheritance tax.

McCain pretended to suspend his campaign to get Congress to pass bailout legislation to avoid a financial crisis of biblical proportions. But instead of leading, he couldn't even get House Republicans to quit playing chicken with the stock market. On the morning before the rescue legislation initially failed in the U.S. House of Representatives, McCain was bragging about how his leadership had made the difference. Maybe he was thinking MISSION ACCOMPLISHED a little prematurely.


And Republicans still want to spend $10 billion every month in Iraq. We can't afford it anymore. When Democrats try to cut off this irresponsible spending, they are accused of not supporting the troops and wanting to 'lose' a war. General Petreus has already stated publicly that there is no VICTORY to be achieved in Iraq. Nothing in heaven or on earth justifies a continuation of spending such obscene amounts on an occupation when Iraqis are swimming in oil profits. America is going through one of the worst financial crisis in its history and many of our citizens have been suffering financially long before there was a crisis on Wall Street.

Democrats do not have all of the answers to the downhill slide that the U.S. is on. But there is one thing for certain; Democrats are not the ones proposing that we continue the same failed policies that have created such a mess. It is time for something different. We are not better off than we were 8 years ago.

And by coincidence or fate, we have an election right upon us at the same time we are on the precipice, staring into the abyss. We have a chance to change direction.