Government assistance should be temporary

Democrats say the Build Better bill and child tax credits “would dramatically end child poverty.” But, it is not the children who are in poverty. It is their parent (s). There are far too many people who got and wasted taxpayers’ money last year. Giving people more money (pretending it’s for their kids) isn’t going to make things better. Government assistance should be a temporary service, people are going through difficult times and need help. Valid adults should work.

We are at a point in our society where you can find generations of families who have never been deprived of government handouts. This is what the government wants, a shift from freedom and independence to a cradle-to-grave society.

Joe Manchin is right. Prove that you work out first before you get any relief.

The child care credit should be income-based, not some other social assistance payment. Encouraging able-bodied Americans to stay home and receive government welfare is wrong. Such credits should be seen as a reward for those who get up in the morning, get the kids ready for school or daycare, and go to work. We now have 11 million jobs in the United States and that would increase exponentially because some parents would choose to stay home instead of working.

Our country was built on a strong work ethic. Families, including children, contributed to their own well-being, as well as to that of the country.

Lou Walker, Cape Coral

MAGA delusions block meaningful conversation

I totally admire and agree with the hope expressed in the recent “Peace through Communication” letter.

Unfortunately, communication is only successful if both parties speak the same language. And until the delusional MAGA crowd accepts the standard definition of words as proof, proof, truth and fact, any attempt to communicate with them is a waste of time. You have a better chance of having a meaningful conversation with an aardvark.

Jay Light, Fort Myers Beach

Adult men acting like little children

Why do we continue to receive letters from people who say “the election was stolen”? Where time and time again it has been proven not to be true. Did their parents never teach them to win, to lose? As a mother of nine in all sports, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, group, cheerleader, they must have known that some people cheat, lie and think they won when in reality This was not the case. Now, they’re supposedly grown-up men acting like little kids believing they won when they know they didn’t.

Joanne Kelley, Cape Coral

Biden overcomes Jimmy Carter’s incompetence

Ex-President Jimmy Carter has to be the happiest person in Georgia. President Biden broke his one-year incompetence record while it took Carter four years, including giving the Panama Zone to accomplish the same.

Jim McMenamy, Fort Myers

The position of the United States on the world stage

I am a cold war veteran. We veterans have risen to defend the United States against communist world domination. Meanwhile, there was the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which brought us within 18 minutes of nuclear war with the USSR), the Kennedy assassination, and Johnson’s Vietnam blunder.

It was a waste of time because I could have spent my time in the corporate world making my life easier.

As it stands, I have a president who is a Chinese Communist sympathizer who lacks the courage to defend the United States on the world stage.

Willis Smith, Fort Myers

Inflation continues as the Fed struggles

Inflation is reaching levels that young people in this country have never seen. The Federal Reserve has decided to stop putting more money into the monetary system. There appears to be agreement, and historical facts, that raising interest rates will help slow inflation. Can someone explain to me why the Federal Reserve is just “slowing down” its purchases of bonds and mortgages? They plan to quit by March. It’s a quarter of the year. Why didn’t they just stop doing this at the December meeting? What would have happened? Interest rates would have gone up a bit. Isn’t that the whole point? While they flounder, inflation will continue and maybe even get worse.

Dennis Miller, Miromar Lakes

Keeping your commitment to Ukraine

In response to the editorial “America Needs a Better Plan Than NATO Expansion,” Michael O’Hanlon has completely agreed not to stir the Russian bear. He totally ignored the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which the United States, Britain and Russia signed. Ukraine was at the time the third nuclear power in the world. In return for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Ukraine has been guaranteed protection against any border attack. Where is this guarantee today? Of course, no one wants a war in Europe, but by not standing up to Putin and his dream of returning to Soviet power, the United States will allow Putin to bite Ukraine more piece by piece. We must defend democracy and the will of the Ukrainian people to be a fully independent democratic country. Perhaps the only way Ukraine can be supported would be to once again rebuild a strong defensive nuclear arsenal.

Luba Howard, Naples

Is climate change real?

I was very happy to see this article printed in its December 19 issue, an alternative to the usual doomsday stories about climate change. While the usual suspects (those who see the end of climate problems approaching) will choose the data that fits their fatalistic narrative, Ms Tubb presented data and facts that we rarely see. For example, she refers to the article by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is chock full of data. It’s worth reading the full report.

Has a prediction of catastrophic climate change come true? I can’t think of any. Politicians and the media are standing together to predict the end of the world if we don’t act immediately. They refer to tornadoes, hurricanes, the intensity of thunderstorms and flooding as if they were actually linked to climate change. No facts, just stories.

Ms Tubb rightly asks some serious questions: “What is the rate of future warming, and do we have any reliable tools to make educated guesses?” Why is the pre-1850 climate so preferred that the policies of global warming catastrophists point to it as a political target? What is the “ideal” temperature? I would also ask, how do we maintain the ideal temperature?

If the climate change catastrophe is truly in our future, will the trillions of dollars that some politicians and others are willing to spend on it actually work? This is another question to ask.

Nick Blauwiekel, Naples

Businesses, not taxpayers, should foot the bill

A recent letter wrote about paid family leave which is a good idea, but also wrote that the government should pay for family leave. The government does not make any money, the money it distributes is taxpayers’ money so in reality it is the taxpayers who would be responsible for paid family leave. Why not a single politician or political party, whether Republican, Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, places the burden of soft infrastructure on business. Our politicians have allowed American businesses to get away with cutting pensions, health care, sick leave, and in some cases even vacations. These same politicians are on the news channel complaining about corporate greed. Do something about it. Don’t expect the US taxpayer to pay the bills.

Patricia Tobiasen, Fort Myers