Letter to the Editor

The News Courier encourages letters to the editor. Submissions should be no more than 400 words and include name, address and telephone number for verification. Submissions that do not meet requirements are subject to editing. Writers are limited to one published letter every 30 days. Send letters to P.O. Box 670, Athens AL 35613 or email to adam@athensnews-courier.com. The deadline for letters is Wednesday at noon.

No one stood for us on tax

Dear Editor:

Alabama has had our share of corruption, but the way this gas tax was rammed through may be an all-time high. Almost every major lobbying group in Montgomery was for it. Our state representatives are bought and paid for by them.

A special session was called by Gov. Ivey and both the House and Senate complied. They proceeded to steam roll it through in under a week, so fast that most people had no idea what the bill really said. This was planned by both Houses and Governor Ivey.

See her quote: “All the freshmen who ran for House and Senate were indeed briefed on the need for an infrastructure bill well before they were elected,” Ivey said. “And they were vetted by the House and Senate leadership, and if they were not for increasing the gas tax for infrastructure, they were not encouraged to run.”

Vetting should be the voters job, not Speaker Mac McCutcheon’s or Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh’s. The will of the people has been directly thwarted by those we elected.

The only people this gas tax may be good for are big business highway contractors, or dredgers of Mobile Bay. It is not good for working Alabamians.

Fifty percent of the money coming to the counties is required to be spent with contractors that are required to be submitted by the Association of County Engineers. The plot deepens because this bill also requires the state to pay county engineers out of state funds.

The corrupt state wanted to pay the county engineers to gain their allegiance and influence, because they know they belong to the Association of County Engineers who help pick the corporate contractors that this bill says the counties must use. These contractors fund the lobbyists in Montgomery.

If you follow the money and control it is all circular. More and more power and control is ending up in Montgomery instead of in our counties where it should be.

This is not just a 10-cent gas increase. It’s completely open-ended. In theory, you could call it a 100 times increase. It gives bureaucrats the ability to index (raise) the gas tax 1 cent every two years. It also gives them the ability to raise your license taxes and registration fee $3 every four years.

Not one of Limestone County’s representatives stood for us and voted against this forever increasing tax.

Sincerely,

Jack Hall

Athens

Lost in translation?

Dear Editor:

I read where the study of foreign languages is dying in American schools. Why?

We as a nation have accepted, “They learn English, so we don’t need to learn their language,” as the norm. This is a fallacy, and we pay for it with American lives.

By limiting our own ability, we have made ourselves the servants of those who translate for us. Why does this matter?

If the State Department or military only sent qualified linguists as leaders overseas, our understanding of others would increase. We would be able to deal with anyone, rather than only those foreigners who spoke English. We could meet people from classes and social groupings who did not learn English as part of their education, if they had any education at all.

This would require effort, time and money from the government. The same applies to private business and even our private lives. We are servants of anyone who translates for us. Better that translator is an American than a foreigner whose interests, loyalties and status we don’t know.

For us to understand other lands, we need to know not only what the educated, leadership classes think, but also those who might not cross our regular paths. To do so requires we have a way to interact with them. We can only interact with foreign people if we can communicate with them directly, rather than through a third foreign party whose interests we don’t completely understand. Had we done so, we might not have had the fiasco we had in Vietnam, for example, or the Middle East today.

We only interact with those with whom we can communicate. If they translate for us, we are their servants, whether we want this or not. Sad to say, America doesn’t understand this.

Sincerely,

John Davis

Athens

Why not a lottery?

Dear Editor:

Regarding the proposed gas tax on March 7, Mr. Smith quotes Gov. Ivey, “While our neighboring states are increasing their revenue for their transportation budgets, Alabama has not.”

Okay, everybody around us has a lottery. Why not us? You don’t have to like it or play. Up here, those who do play go to Tennessee. That money could stay here and help out.

In a letter to the editor this month, it was stated that our legislators are taking $63 million a year out of the highway fund for their own use. If we get a new gas tax, will they take out even more?

Could this really be about raising taxes so they can take out more? Let the people vote for one or the other.

Sincerely,

Gordon Swint

Athens