LBJ, Carter, Clinton let seniors down

Dear Editor:

In response to a letter in the July 28 edition of The Aspen Times about “Those greedy Republicans,” I would like to agree with Mr. Tessem on some points and at the same time point out some facts he may have overlooked.

I am a war veteran myself, Vietnam era. My oldest son is on his third combat tour, and my youngest son led 140 four men across the berm from Kuwait into Iraq in 2003. Now that we have the veteran status established let me move on.

I agree this is a do-nothing Congress – has been for several years now. The comment about the infrastructure going down the tubes is accurate; however, let’s attribute that fact to the way the individual states use the money granted for those projects. Take the bridge over the Mississippi River that collapsed. Money was granted to repair the bridge; however, local government opted to build walking paths and bicycle paths with the funds originally slated to repair the bridge. Lives were lost due to that decision.

Actually, President Johnson is responsible for the precedent of taking money from Social Security to fund the war on poverty – a dismal failure. At that time poverty was at 14 percent, it now stands at 14.3 percent. It was on President Carter’s watch that people from other countries who had never paid a dime into Social Security started receiving checks from SS funds. That’s two Democrat presidents who have to bear some of the responsibility for raiding the Social Security funds. It was under Clinton/Gore that seniors were forced to pay taxes on the funds they received from Social Security.

Does anyone remember President Clinton’s Peace Dividend? That was his project in which fully one-third to one-half of our military was decommissioned. The CIA funding was drastically cut at the same time. During that time my youngest son was attempting to earn his wings as an Army aviator. The training squadron was assigned 30 helicopters – 27 of those helicopters were grounded due to a lack of a maintenance budget. Nine months after Clinton left office we were attacked on our own soil with more loss of life than at Pearl Harbor.

We are all entitled to our own opinions … but facts are facts.

Wayne Campbell

Sargent, Texas