The Dolphin welcomes letters from our readers on any subject that is of general interest to our audience. Letters should be 300 words or less (with exceptions at the Dolphin’s discretion). Letters reflect the opinion of the writer, and not that of Dolphin Talk staff, and we retain the right to determine suitability for publication. It is the policy of this newspaper to promote area interests: therefore, complaints against local businesses should be directed elsewhere. Letters must be signed and include day and evening phone numbers, which will not be published. Your name will be withheld upon request, but anonymous material will not be considered for publication.

Dolphin Talk P.O. Box 777
Port O’Connor, TX 77982
dolphin1@tisd.net

U.S. Senate Race

I recently had the privilege to listen to a talk given by retired Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez.

General Sanchez led our troops in combat in Iraq and also saw duty in Kosovo.

General Sanchez is asking for our support in his bid to become the next U.S, Senator for Texas.

He believes the future of our nation depends on us seeing that all our children have the opportunity to get a quality education. He also believes that every one should serve our country in some capacity for two years, either in the military or some civil service.

I urge all of you to listen to General Sanchez and consider voting for him come election time.

You won’t regret it if he becomes our next U.S. Senator.

G.B. Robertson

“The Way I See It”

The way I see it, Mr. William D. Brayshaw’s ability to weave his own opinion into and around a few questionable facts is only exceeded by his verbosity.

While I steadfastly defend the right of us all (not only to have his own opinion) but the right to express it without the fear of arrest or persecution I am sure that if Mr. (AKA Longknife 21) had the misfortune to be a citizen of one of a large number of other countries and attempted to assonate the character of that countries leader as he has attempted to do to President Obama he would now be entertaining his guests from within some rodent infested prison instead of talking about adult beverages in an easy chair.

I wonder what Mr. B. would have to say about the man who was President for eight years before “Little Barry” was elected? I am speaking of the presiding person while all of the big banks were indulging themselves and their greedy over compensated officers who were happily wheeling and dealing with those sub-prime mortgages and by doing so were inflating the housing bubble and draining off the profits. They were permitted to get away with this larceny by an administration whose philosophy was to let big business police itself. Like sending a monkey to the store to bring back bananas. Mr. Obama inherited the recession from the prior administration, let us not lose sight of that. They also were the ones who started bailing out the wall street banks as well as American General Insurance company with billions of my money. (boy I sure could use a few million of that now)

It is my opinion that if greed is left unchecked by government will be unchecked period, and there will be no middle income people left. There will only be the ultra rich who have stolen all the assets of our country and produced nothing, and the working poor.

Shame on you Mr, Brayshaw! Do you have any idea how it feels to work as hard as you can at an honest job and not be able to pay all of your bills at the end of the month? I don’t know you but I doubt that you have ever wondered how you were going to buy clothes for your children. I have been there done that, Mr. Brayshaw. My circumstances are much better now and I will assure you that it is due to hard work over a long period of time. Not one time in my life have I made money by buying and selling sub-prime mortgages on other peoples homes or any other unethical or illegal means. I bet you think that the tax breaks President Bush gave to the rich people is OK. Right?

H.B. Thomasson
AKA Scalpel

The Way I See It By Naomi Albrecht

As we get older, all of us wonder from time to time if our memory is not what it used to be, but recently I have begun to suspect that this entire nation is suffering from Alzheimer’s (the loss seems particularly bad here in Texas). Of course, the nation is approaching 250 years of age, and even Texas has been governing itself in one form or another since 1836, so perhaps advancing age accounts for politicians’ and voters’ political amnesia.

Do we really not remember that when George W. Bush took office this nation was poised to pay off the national debt by 2015 and had a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion in the bank to invest (including $3.5 trillion intended for future social security and medicare needs so that promises made to aging Americans could be kept when they retired)?

Have we forgotten that Bush immediately proposed tax cuts that would cost our nation 1.6 trillion over 10 years but that he assured us would result in the creation of new jobs? Of course, the top 1% of tax payers got 37% of the tax cuts while the bottom 60 percent got only 15%, but we were promised that cutting the taxes on the rich would mean more jobs and improved incomes for the rest of us.

Do we recall that these jobs never materialized, that workers found their jobs moving to foreign countries? By 2003 the surplus had disappeared. Have we forgotten that under President Bush America raised the debt limit seven times even as our country financed two wars through continuing allocations (emergency funding not included in budgets) at a cost of $1.26 TRILLION?

Where was the talk of living within our means when these debts were created, and how is it now that the same politicians that created the debt can lecture the rest of us on living within our means and declare that cutting social “entitlements” that tax payers already have paid for in years of payroll taxes are the only acceptable way to get our nation out of debt? No wonder that some students of American politics call this “deficit by design” (a situation begun by Ronald Regan, under whom the debt ceiling was increased 18 times) and suggest that it is part of a plan to destroy programs such as social security and medicare!

Of course, our governor can brag that here in Texas we are balancing our budget and creating more jobs that in other parts of the nation. How soon will forget that the budget was balanced on the backs of our school children and that expenses previously met by state funds are now pushed down to the local level?

How long will it take us to realize that the jobs being created are low-level minimum wage jobs that leave workers in poverty and provide them with no opportunity to save for their future and little hope of help when they reach retirement?

Do we remember 2006 when Gov. Perry and the Legislature cut the property taxes that funded public schools and promised that a new business tax would make up the difference? Have we already forgotten that the Texas comptroller warned us that “this legislation is a staggering $23 billion short of the funds needed to pay for the promised property cuts over the next five years.”

Have we already forgotten that when the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act sent Texas $3.25 billion to spend meeting the state’s educational needs, Perry used those funds to cover shortfalls in areas unrelated to education?

Do we need to be reminded that even as we balance school district budgets by closing community schools, cutting course offerings, laying off teachers and charging students to ride school busses, Texas ranks 49th out of 50 in per-capita taxes, 38th of 50 in its spending per student and 43rd in its graduation rate? Or that only this year our legislators chose to ignore the Texas constitution and state law requiring that educational spending should keep up with the increased costs faced by Texas schools?

Did we not even notice when the 80,000 new students in our schools were ignored as the state underfunded education by $4 billion, leaving schools expected to educate additional students but to do so without a way of paying for their needs?

Has our national and state Alzheimer’s become so bad that we have forgotten how we once made our nation and state great and never noticed when the present and future needs of the many are being sacrificed to make the few even richer than they already are?

Are we really unable to recognize how we are being used by those who hide behind the masks of patriots while manipulating their version of history so that it seems to support policies that serve the desires of the few rather than the needs of the many?

Do we even remember what it was like to be a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people?

Naomi Albrecht, Port O’Connor