Dear editor,

Dear Mr. President,

So far, it’s all been downhill for your presidency as we approach the mid-year elections in November. With your Columbia/Harvard elitist education, one would have thought that you could have figured out your many mistakes way before now. It hasn’t happened, Why!?

Here are some of the reasons you have failed as our president/commander-in-chief:

• You have not kept your campaign and other promises. For example, your nearly $800 billion stimulus expenditure was designed to create jobs, maintaining an unemployment level of 8 percent or less. Instead, the jobless number has hovered around 10 percent. Where did this money go? Some claim that it is a slush fund for liberal politicians.

• You seem to support the building of the huge mosque just two blocks from Ground Zero. You should know that this not a religious freedom issue but a lack of sensitivity being shown to the relatives and friends of the 9/11 victims. The erection of a Ground Zero mosque would be tantamount to the placing of a Japanese battle flag at Pearl Harbor or a Nazi swastika flag being displayed at Auschwitz

• Why, Mr. President, do you have such a penchant for going against the wishes of America’s citizens/voters on almost every issue? Have you forgotten that your Illinois hero, Mr. Lincoln, in his famous Gettysburg Address, proclaimed that our “government was for the people?” You govern as if big government is the answer. Americans want SMALLER government and much, much less intrusion from the f eds in their lives. You don’t get it, do you?

• This past week the 9th anniversary of 9/11/01 was commemorated. The murderous perpetrators were Muslims with a majority of the killers being Saudis. From the beginning of your political career you have acted as if 9/11 never happened, especially most recently during the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Why?

• After nine years the main conspirator, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), has not been tried and sentenced for the 9/11 attacks. The majority of citizens want this trial to be held in Gitmo by a Military Tribunal—not in New York City. Why do you continue to vacillate so? We are talking about the admitted planner and murderer of the 9/11 victims, nine years later. KSM needs to be tried and sentenced.

• You have just about destroyed the U.S. economy with your disastrous spending bills. The budget deficit and debt you have heaped on future generations of Americans will be your future shameful legacy. Based on recent reports I have seen, the budget deficit has reached the $1.7 trillion level, and the national debt is at a monstrous $13.7 trillion. Interest on the debt is $4.12 billion daily!!

• The best way to balance the budget and reduce the debt, in my opinion, Mr. President, is by doing the following:

1. Maintain the current Bush tax cuts for a least two more years or make them permanent.

2. Reduce the current dividend and capital gains rates by at least 50 percent

3. Eliminate the inheritance/death tax permanently

4. Reform the current federal tax code and put a national sales tax in place with waivers for those under the poverty level.

5. Cut “pork” spending to zero for a least two years or more.

By implementing the above, big-time economic growth would begin, resulting in huge tax revenues pouring into federal treasury coffers. Major investing by corporate America would explode at all levels, from small businesses to the industrial giants.

Again, stimulating growth is the answer to our economic problems. Growth would surely reduce the unemployment levels. Are you interested? Try it, you will like it!

Byrd Looper

Selma