A friend who is a successful businessman told me the following: “The government thinks if it takes enough money from people who earn it and subsidize a bunch of people it will create millions of jobs. How dumb is it? Let me tell you what it takes to create jobs. Someone has to turn his/her back on financial security, step away from a regular paycheck and risk everything on a business venture. He/she has to go days and nights of wracking anxiety, work and struggle for months without gain and skirt the edge of failure while finding the will to persist. “If he/she can survive this relentless adversity and be creative enough to develop a product or service that people want he/she can begin to break even and eventually hire someone. That creates one job. No matter how many employees a company eventually has, that’s how it starts. Is there anyone in Washington who understands what it takes to create one job? “For every business that succeeds there are 50 that don’t last five years. Those who survive and begin to make a profit are in for a rude awakening. The precious capital he/she managed to earn quickly gets taxed away by government. This is money that would otherwise be used to create growth and employment. A business strives to gain a financial cushion that will help it survive a slump or downturn. State and federal taxes take half of their profits, however, thereby stunting employment and killing jobs. “There’s a formula for job creation. Let businesses keep more of what they earn. Most especially, let business startups go without taxes. For an immediate turnaround cut all business taxes to the bone. Make it profitable to take risks and create jobs. Unleash the entrepreneurs and get government out of the way.” ROGER M. CLITESMilligan CollegeHandwritingAbolish cursive? Never. Maybe first graders can learn printing. Cursive is done by the Palmer Method and is taught in 7th grade. It is a true art form. It is purely a good feeling to swing along with a good pen or soft lead pencil.I never buy greeting cards. I use pretty paper to write letters. You can always identify someone’s handwriting who has been taught the Palmer Method. WANNETA JOHNSON Johnson City ConsequencesHow many times in the recent past has the United States acted in the international arena with the expectations of a single act being sufficient? In 1964, in the Bay of Tonkin, U.S. ships reacted to an ambiguous situation and expected the situation to be resolved quickly. We were in a quagmire for 11 years in a region and nation we did not understand.A decade later, we did the same below our southern border throughout Latin America. Again, we did not appreciate the risks. Coincidentally, we moved into Lebanon through the deployment of Marines. Their barracks were the target of a bombing and again we had only a dim awareness of the issues, but Marines — 241 fine young men — were killed. Then, we got the “Mission Accomplished” bulletin in Iraq from our president in 2003. Tell that to the parents of those U.S. troops killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2012. And, troops remain in Afghanistan. Recent Medal of Honor recipients’ citations and statements describe tactical situations in which no wise commander would place troops.President Obama, his predecessors as commanders-in-chief, senior general grade officers and joint chiefs have displayed over and over an ignorance of the complexities of international relations, history, current conflicts and social relations. President Obama has said he does not expect the incursion into Syria to be prolonged. Hogwash! The Syrian government has friends in their region. Syrians and their allies can respond to U.S. missile attacks in very pointed and direct ways or more subtle — remember the USS Cole; remember the Marine barracks; remember the Brinks Hotel; remember Tet 1968; remember the The Day that will Live in Infamy; remember 9/11. Let us make no mistake. The actions of the United States have consequences beyond what we realize for much longer than we visualize.BERT ALLENJohnson City
↧