11 examples of 'change' you can believe in

This Letter to the Editor originally published in The Pottstown Mercury comes from a Berks County resident. He lists 11 changes he'd like to see in the way our government is run. I agree with all 11. Review the letter yourself and decide if these are the kind of changes we all can agree on.

Real changes Americans want to see in their government

So, you want change? The political message this year has been all about "change." Here are a few changes that I believe all Americans want:

1) Limit the Congress from serving more than two terms. That is all that presidents are allowed. This would eliminate the "old-boy network" that is now established.

2) Stop Congress from voting for their own raises. Can you do that?

3) Stop paying these "lawmakers" their full salary after serving only one term. The working American people are lucky to get 20 percent of their salary at retirement after working somewhere for 35 years, but these "lawmakers" get 100 percent of their salary for the rest of their lives.

4) Make every government worker, including Congress, pay into the Social Security system. Congress has their own "security" plan which the average American is not privileged to. If they had to spend some of their own money, they might be really interested in making Social Security and Medicare solvent.

5) Stop handing out aid to illegal aliens. If they did, then Medicaid and the food stamp program would have enough money to really take care of our aged and poor.

6) Stop allowing babies born to illegal aliens in these United States to automatically become U.S. citizens entitled to all citizens benefits.

7) Stop bailing out mortgage companies and banks that gave out loans to people who they knew could not afford to pay (subprime & ARMs). These financial institutions then sold them to Wall Street to bundle and resell to other investors and now they are asking the working American to pay for it out of his/her labor.

8) Regulate and curtail the credit card industry to cease excessive usury to place their customers in deeper debt. This will be the next 'bubble' to burst.

9) Stop all unnecessary spending to other nations until our country is secure and our infrastructure, needy, and elderly are taken care of. After all, these elderly people are the ones who sacrificed through many wars to insure that our freedoms would allow suggestions, such as these, to appear in any publication without reprimand.

10) Disconnect all lobbyists from having any influence in the matters of our government.

11) Restrict the IRS from confiscating the American workers' personal income by taxing that income and using it to pay for bad decisions made by private corporations.

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." — Winston Churchill

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." — George Bernard Shaw

"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of citizens to give to the other." — Voltaire

"The only difference between the IRS and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin —Mark Twain

JERRY CROWLEY
Boyertown