Texas unemployment and jobs

Have you noticed that Gov. Rick Perry’s TV ads are always about jobs created? According to PolitiFact Texas, those jobs were created between 2000 and 2007. It would be interesting to know how many of those jobs paid more than minimum wage. 

Texas currently has more than 1 million people unemployed. Our unemployment rate is 8.25 percent. Do you remember when Perry refused to accept federal stimulus money to help the unemployed? However, he did accept federal stimulus money to balance the 2009 state budget. And instead of giving some of it to the schools, he put it in the rainy day fund.

Mary Ridgway, Rockdale

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GOP congressional candidate Bill Flores says the stimulus package that U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards voted on failed, yet Gov. Rick Perry in his own campaign talks about all the jobs created here in Texas. How can that be if the stimulus package failed? Have you stopped to wonder how much worse the economy could have been had the stimulus package not been approved?

And what kind of jobs are we talking about? Are we talking about part-time jobs of minimum wage or full-time jobs and being paid a living wage?

Republicans blame the recession on the Obama administration. Democrats blame the recession on the Bush administration. Throughout history, we as a country have experienced recessions and depressions every 20 to 30 years. It is called a business cycle, and it occurs when people become too greedy and only worry about making the dollar for themselves and not worrying about their fellow man. It could happen during any type of Congress we have.

Please vote in this election and vote carefully. It would be wonderful if we could all become “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” as our forefathers intended.

Teresa M. Nors, West

Republican Pledge to America

It seems every time I have a political discussion with my conservative friends, they say, “Read the bill.” So I decided to take their advice and read the 48-page Republican Pledge to America. What I discovered was a broken pledge that makes no promises and treads on constitutional traditions.

As an independent voter, I’m a huge fan of individual responsibility. Therefore, I was disappointed that, unlike the 1994 Contract With America, no actual bills nor signed candidate endorsements were attached to the document. The pledge seems to refuse to hold anyone responsible.

I agreed with their pledge to “give smallbusinesses a tax deduction.” However, their position puzzled me because almost every Republican voted against the latest jobs bill, which provides loans and cuts the capital gains tax for small businesses. Were these conflicting positions a reason why candidates did not sign the pledge?

Finally, I was disturbed by the motivations behind their pledge to continue the modern practice of legislating legal interpretations. “We will require each bill moving through Congress to include a clause citing the specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified” (Page 33). This seems to blur the lines of separation set forth in our Constitution. Article III states, “The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court.” For over 200 years, the power to determine constitutional authority has traditionally rested in the courts, not Congress.

The Republican pledge appears to ask Americans to trust but not verify. I encourage all to read the pledge, verify my claims and come to your own conclusions.

Brandon Chase Goldsmith, Memphis, Tenn

Vote in upcoming election races

For all the complaining about Bill White and Rick Perry, Chet Edwards and Bill Flores, remember this: If you don’t vote Nov. 2, you have no right to complain to the rest of us afterward.

No vote, no squawk! Keep quiet. We won’t want to hear at all from you.

Nancy Cagle, Waco

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What’s happening in the elections, to the members of Congress who have been obstructing almost everything our nation’s administration proposes?

Obstructionist candidates are being weeded out within political parties by voters in their primary elections.

Now, the weed-out process continues in the general election, when voters will again transcend political party affiliation, to cast out obstructionists and self-servers.

Early voting begins in Texas on Oct. 18.   Vote as early as you can.

John Bauer,  St. Martinez, Calif.

Grateful for help at store

My family and I would like to send a very special thanks to the management and staff of Hobby Lobby and the angel who was in the right place at the right time. My mom was at the store when this angel (a respiratory therapist, we were later told) spotted my mom and thought she’d better stay close to her because she wasn’t looking well. She followed her to the checkout stands, and when the cashier asked, “Can I help you, ma’am?” my mother simply passed out.

The cashier ran around the counter and tried to wake her. The cashier then called for help while the respiratory therapist tended to my mother until the ambulance arrived.

We later learned that she was going into a diabetic coma. Had these angels not responded as they did, we might not have her with us today. No one caught the lady’s name that stayed with Mom but we want to thank her.

Teresa Gill, Elm Mott