Cap and tax will further damage economy

In the name of saving us from global warming, House Democrats have passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act (cap and trade), a 1,400-page bill that was unread by those who voted "aye."

The bill flies in the face of reality and basic economics and should it become law, can only bring more lost jobs, inflation and further economic decline.

The bill punishes the use of oil and coal, the fuels for our economic engine. Despite the wishful thinking of radical environmentalists, there are no viable replacements for oil and coal in the foreseeable future.

ACESA will levy a cap and tax on our use on fossil fuels, raising the cost of gas and electricity significantly, taking more money out of our pockets/the economy, and heating up inflation.

Mr. Obama failed to persuade the G8 (most notably India and China) to support his CO2 limits, so we are taking on global warming alone.

Cap and trade's increased taxes will put U.S. manufacturing goods at an even greater trade disadvantage. How long will it take U.S. manufacturers to figure out that they need to move their plants to India and China if they want to stay in business?

Why is our president and his party anxious to levy more burdens on our faltering economy when it runs completely contrary to common sense and economic thinking?

Is this another crisis aimed at creating a panicked populace more willing to accept socialism as their only hope?

J.V. Fitzsimmons
Hickory

Bush handed Obama a record deficit

This letter is in response to James McCall's claim that the Democrats railed righteously against Bush's $500 billion deficit. I wish it were $500 billion. Obama's administration inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit, the largest in the nation's history.

Bush came into office with a $230 billion surplus. But due to a $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001, a $1.5 trillion tax cut in 2003 and a massive defense buildup through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Bush blew through that surplus.

Bush's budget deficit ballooned to more than $1 trillion because his supply-side tax policies slashed revenues while failing to deliver strong economic performance. Bush turned a record surplus into a record deficit.

While claiming to be deficit hawks, the Republican-led Congresses from 2001 to 2006 rubber-stamped the Bush agenda that created the current fiscal crisis. The Republican Congress shuttled through pork-stuffed legislation, massive tax cuts, and huge increases in defense spending. Yet, those same members are trying to stifle the Obama agenda with concerns about the budget.

It is clear that while this deficit now belongs to Barack Obama, it was handed to him by George W. Bush and the Republican Party. It is not a result of the stimulus, attempts to reform healthcare or to achieve energy independence.

Donna Roulic
Hickory

Columnist writes about Hickory with authority

I sure have enjoyed the Charles Deal articles over the last couple of years. He has written about how things happened here in Hickory back in the late 1930s, '40s, and '50s. He is the last of our local newspaper men who can write with knowledge about how Hickory was, having owned and edited his own newspaper in Hickory.

Several weeks back, he wrote about the 1948 vote on local ABS stores. I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table and discussing why or why not to vote for the ABC stores. We would be the only "wet" county in the middle of about five counties, and the liquor taxes would be applied to our school systems.

I can't say I ever saw any progress or growth from that tax. It seems that government only decreased taxes that had been allocated previous years.

The local feelings were that the only groups that voted against ABC stores were the Baptists and bootleggers.

I've always been proud of Hickory and enjoy Mr. Deal's articles.

David Whitener
Hickory