WEBB CITY, Mo. —
Our economy is far from being good. We have about 23 million people out of work, even more on the welfare rolls, and some 40 million on food stamps. So, the supermarket industry now relies on food stamps for about 30 percent of its business . Also, prices are higher, family incomes are lower and we have about 39 million Americans in poverty. We owe about $4 trillion more than we did four years ago, so none of us are better off.
Our international problems are getting worse. We get rid of a dictator in the Middle East and the Muslim Brotherhood takes over. Iran is a big problem. Many times sanctions and talk will not work. They haven’t with North Korea. Iraq will continue to have trouble until the Sunnis topple the Shiites whom we put in. We still have about 130 troops in Iraq, plus 15,000 across the border in Kuwait. We have trouble in Africa. President Clinton said our troops in Kosovo would be there three more years, and we still have about 1,500 there. We have problems just about everywhere.
With our debt at $16 trillion and rising, we cannot be the world police, putting troops in 150 countries and giving money away that we don’t have. You can’t borrow 30 percent that you spend each day and survive. We can and must do better.
Clovis Steele
Webb City
Opinion
Your View: We can do better
- Opinion
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Our View: Setting standard
The sight of hundreds of young student volunteers walking across Moore’s Fourth Street interstate overpass had to be uplifting to the city’s tornado victims.
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Our View: Safer schools
Being able to see for ourselves what would have happened to our children had they been standing in the main hall of their schools during the May 22, 2011, tornado had a profound effect on our understanding of safe schools.
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Marilyn Beasley, guest columnist: Claiming responsibility for abuse of power
Over the past few months we’ve witnessed the abuse of power by President Barack Obama and his administration.
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Our View: ‘Why?’ has no answer
Just hours before, there was breakfast and laughter. There were pictures on the walls and memories in every room.
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Our View: Absent from House
We can’t figure out why two Missouri legislators think they should be elected to the U.S. House when it appears they can’t seem to show up to take care of business in the Missouri House.
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Your View: Terrible injustice
I see this Jasper County nuisance law as a terrible injustice on the rights of the residents of Jasper County.
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Your View: Should we be outraged?
Were there effusive apologies following the lockdown of Boston as most of the continent indulged vicariously in the ongoing manhunt?
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Your View: Terrorism is terrorism
In the May 13 issue of The Joplin Globe there was an Associated Press article concerning the New Orleans shooting.
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Phill Brooks, columnist: Missouri Senate did what Founding Fathers had in mind
George Washington once described the Senate as being like a saucer in which you pour coffee or tea.
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Other Views: Conflicts in SEC
Money talks. In the continuing dispute over the all-too-cozy relationship between the people who create and sell financial products and the people who rate their risk, the money says: Shut up and let us do what we want.
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