Ninety years ago, Carrie Chapman Catt proposed a League of Women Voters to “finish the fight” and work to end all discrimination against women. And so the League of Women Voters was founded on Valentine’s Day in 1920, six months before the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
Today we are a grassroots organization with 850 leagues throughout all 50 states. The league is strictly nonpartisan but we have always been political, advocating to effect change at the national and local levels.
In this new year we will continue to discuss the important issues, ask the difficult questions, and demand accountability from our government. We know that whatever happens to our democracy over the next 90 years should be up to us, the people of this nation. The League of Women Voters is the organization where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement, and this year, on our 90th anniversary, we hope you will stand with us in this work. If we don’t do it, who will?
Nancy Horne, Hannah F. Honeyman, co-presidents, Manatee County League of Women Voters Bradenton, Sarasota
Job creation plan based on tax dubbed class warfare
Despite endless propaganda about the imminent danger of budget deficit disasters and a socialist takeover of our country, a CNN poll in mid-January found that four out of five Americans favor government spending on roads and bridges, and 83 percent favor extending unemployment insurance.
Echoing this sound sentiment for public investment, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has asked for a $400 billion government program to create 4 million jobs in a recent interview on the “Bill Moyers Journal” TV show.
Trumka noted that Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s plan for a 5.6 percent tax on any individual income over $1 million would provide the $400 billion, and that from 1946 to 1973 productivity doubled in the United States along with wages. But since 1973 wages have stayed flat while productivity continued to go up.
Bill Moyers said that the Wall Street Journal is accusing Trumka of bringing on class warfare with this kind of talk, to which Trumka poignantly observed: “The class war has been on, except my class has been losing.”
Robert Phillipoff
Bradenton
Elect conservatives to cut government, spending, debt
This is in response to the Feb. 7 letter (“GOP looks like the party of cut taxes, add debt”) of Elvin Byrom, who checked the budget balancing of the presidents from 1941 to 2009. He stated the Republican Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II left deficits totaling $4.6 trillion. What he failed to realize or mention is that during the Nixon and Ford presidencies, the Democrats had the majority in the House and the Senate! The Carter years were a disaster for our country and the Dems had both majorities then as well.
During Reagan’s years the Dems and Republicans shared the majority in the Senate about half of the time each. The Republicans had the majority in the Congress. Reagan began an era of prosperity for this country. Under Bush I the Dems had the majority in the Senate and Congress. During the revered Clinton presidency, the Republicans had the majority in the House from 1995 to 2001 and had the Senate from 1995 to 2001.
Under Bush II the Republicans had majority in Congress about half of the time with the Dems the other half. In the Senate the Dems had majority from 2001 to 2003 and from 2007 to present.
In my view, there is no debating that George W. Bush was a progressive Republican who spent like a Democrat. President Obama is nothing more than a continuation of this. He has expanded government and spending by record numbers.
We can see that both R’s & D’s have shared in this mess. This only highlights why we need to elect conservative representatives to office. We need to limit the size of government, reduce spending and return power to the states. In other words, follow the Constitution as our founders intended. The more people and business look to government to solve their problems, the more freedom we lose.
If we continue the path we are on, our country as we have come to know and enjoy will cease to exist.
Kathy Solomon
Parrish
