Taxing the rich hurts economy

To the editor:

The debt ceiling deal hasn’t appeased liberals, who continue calling for more massive spending, huge tax hikes and an ever-expanding big government to pay for so-called “entitlements.”

This is socialism, pure and simple, the redistribution of wealth. The problem with socialism is that, eventually, you can run out of other people’s money. Still that doesn’t stop the true believers from taking every opportunity to try it “one more time” and their cry is always rooted in class warfare.

For instance, President Barack Obama railed six times in one press conference alone against the tax break for corporate job owners to which Charles Krauthammer responded. I did the math. If you called that tax for the next 5,000 years (that is not a typo), it would equal the debt Obama racked up last year alone.

To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since, first in shekels and then in dollars, we would have 500 years to go before we could afford half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

These days, the rich are defined as couples who make $250,000 a year roughly what two professional working people would earn annually. Now if that couple has two kids, a mortgage and car payments, health care, costs and living expenses, how can they be considered rich?

It’s ridiculous. Moreover, even if we confiscated every dime from every millionaire and billionaire in the country, it wouldn’t come anywhere close to addressing our debt crisis and the class warfare crowd knows this but won’t admit it. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a big spending problem.

Taxing the rich always ends up hurting the working people and the economy. Although socialists use that term “the rich,” the people they are talking about are business owners, job creators and investors. Simply put, the more of their money that the government takes away, the less they invest into the economy, the fewer jobs they create or continue to carry and the less risk they take with their money in starting new businesses.

Socialism is a fiscally ruinous route, for it strikes against the biblical precepts upon which this nation was founded, “the 10 Commandments,” which, along with prayer and Bible reading, has been removed from our schools by the Supreme Court and replaced with stealing from one group of people to give to another, calling it fair. What’s fair about you working hard all your life and being forced to hand it over to the people (parasites) who never worked a day in their lives?

We are in moral decline as well as economic decline. The two are linked, they are inseparable and until we confront this fact, we’ll never be able to deal with our debt or economic decline. We will fall like the Roman Empire.

Lovelace Perkins

St. Cloud

We did it – and thanks

To the editor:

Are you ready to Rumble in the Jungle!

That’s right Panthers, we did it – we are an A school – all because of teamwork.

Yes, we set a goal the first day of school of becoming an A school at Gateway and we succeeded. You are truly winners.

I want to take a moment and thank the Gateway High School community for all its support and commitment to student achievement. I had a vision/mission when I arrived of increasing student achievement by improving school spirit/pride by uniting the Panthers as one team with a common goal – becoming an A school.

My mission was to support all academic programs and extracurricular activities, create student/stakeholder buy-in through student led campus wide beautification projects, and enhance the culture of academic excellence by encouraging all students to believe in themselves in order to stretch academically.

As an administrative team, we established our expectations for positive behavior support interventions and we were committed to rewarding academic excellence for all students. We had a plan and we worked the plan with passion, pride and commitment to all students.

Without the support of the staff, the parents, the community, the district and especially the students, none of our success would have been possible. For that support, I want to thank everyone and it is truly a great day to be a Panther and a wonderful day to be an A school.

John Harris

Principal

Andrew Jackson Middle School

Titusville

Editor’s note: John Harris was principal at Gateway High School for the 2010-11 school year.

Certain ingredients needed

To the editor:

Who is the best candidate – a Democrat, a Republican, an independent, non-affiliated or a member of a race or ethnic group claiming to that he or she is the best qualified candidate due to these identifying backgrounds?

It is no longer valid that a Hispanic candidate, regardless of political party affiliation, will be the best answer to the needs of the people unless that candidate displays the following ingredients:

• Ability to communicate with the needs of the people – it is not even necessary to be an attorney, doctor, a great orator or any other profession. The candidate must demonstrate involvement with the community.

• The second ingredient is paramount: Possessing integrity, which means  incorruptible and adherence to a code of moral values. An ancient writer stated the following: “For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered  away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6:10.

Temptations do not discriminate among the candidates emanating from our imperfect society. A wise man wrote over 2.000 years ago: “happy is the person who remains faithful under trials, because when he succeeds in passing such a test, he will receive as his reward the life with God has promised to those who love him...but a person is tempted when he is drawn away and trapped by his own evil desire.” James 1:12-15.

• The third most important quality is the dedication to serve the people. An ancient prophet said  thousand years ago: “I did not come to this world to be served – but to serve others.” The candidates seeking public elective office should emulate these words. Public elected officials, instead of following their own personal and remunerative agendas, should pursue the people’s agenda.

I believe there should be more happiness in giving than in receiving. Act 20:35. The hardworking American families deserved that much as they strive for a better tomorrow.

Some government officials because of political expediencies love to outsource contracts outside of their local government jurisdiction. That is wrong unless there is a bona fide justification. A man known as Paul counseled his younger disciple Timothy with these profound words: “ If anyone does not take care of his relatives, especially the members of his own family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy 4: 8. There is a correlation regarding these words and the conduct of some elected public officials.

Armando Ramirez

Kissimmee