April 13, 2011
Wednesday PM

Dear Editor:

Lord, Help us! I must respond to Gerry Knasiak. There was so much misinformation in her letter that I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

Her contention that the  “GOP is the guardian of privilege” give me a break. Many of the filthy rich, like Soros and Gates, are democrats. Soros in particular is busy promoting a liberal agenda which damages the American economy and then he is making billions by selling America short on currency exchanges etc. Look at the donation lists from the top Corporations there is no GOP bias there. They are equal opportunity corrupters.

For the record, my view on the differences between Democrats and Republicans is like the differences between Methodists and Congregationalists. Both Reps and Dems are regulating and spending this once-great country into oblivion. What we need 'metaphorically speaking' is a few atheists or at least agnostics in congress.

Gerry’s contention that there is no trickle down benefit to the bottom 80% is absurd:

• 8% of people are on welfare—pretty good beginning to a ‘trickle down benefit.’

• 20% receive an Earned Income Credit—unearned money given to them from the top half who actually pay taxes (more trickle down benefit).

• 8% receive unemployment benefits—a payment primarily paid for by a tax on the employers (another trickle down benefit).

• Then there is the many receiving Supplementary Security Income because of disabilities—many of them never having worked before (just another trickle down benefit).

• Oh and there is the Section 8 housing, and

•  there is the Medicare, and Medicaid, and ........

All these programs, and others as well, were created to transfer wealth and income from the producers in our society to the non-producers. Is some of it warranted?, of course. But to say there is no trickle down benefit is crazy.

Gerry's praise of Krugman is also unwarranted. His politics rules his judgment. After the disastrous stimulus program—his recommendation ‘Spend more.’ His complaint about Obama not leading is also not correct. Obama has effectively led us deeper into a hole that the Congress with the complicity of Bill Clinton and George Bush began digging years ago.

In closing just remember: The first rule of getting yourself (or your country) out of a hole, is to quit digging!

Robert Thompson
Bend, Oregon

About me: I am an avid reader of Sitnews. Because of my unemployed state, I was forced to move back to Oregon from Alaska's wonderful 'first city." I hope to return in the near future.