Our People Deserve Help First

To The Editor:

With all this talk about reducing “entitlement” programs, nothing has been said about reducing the amount of money this country is giving away in foreign aid.

How is it we have so much money to help others and cannot find the money to help our own citizens here in the United States of America!

And another thing, entitlement is completely the wrong word to use. Social Security is not an entitlement, it is an earned program.

The United States has bases all over the world where the conflict that put them there has ended years ago. These bases provide a financial benefit for areas that surround them.

We have so many bases, about 130 or so. China has none. Our people deserve help first.

Our Congress has the best benefits, which, I may say, are much better than the masses they represent. How is this possible? That’s why they can so easily go about cutting our benefits while theirs are sacred and untouchable. They are supposed to work for us. Why are their benefits better than ours? Are any of their benefits being cut? Whose fault is this? How dare they not look at foreign aid at all? Two billion of our money goes to Egypt ... unbelievable! Who knows how much else to so many?

Still, the opium poppies that are the money behind the terrorists are still being allowed to grow and flourish in Afghanistan. While we, here at home, are waiting for the ax to fall on Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare and, daily, foreign aid flows out of America like an unending river of our money with no transparency.

Congress retires with full benefits and all kinds of perks even after a short term. Businesses are relocating overseas or Mexico and wiping out years of pension benefits to loyal employees.

What can the average, hard-working, patriotic American do about any of this? Nothing apparently. There must be something.

The patriots who bled and died to begin this country came from countries just like this one has become. They died to change things for the average citizen. We think they died in vain.

Do you know who represents you in county, state or federal office? Do they know what you think or how you feel about what they are doing?

Isn’t this supposed to be America — of the people, for the people, by the people?

We wonder.