"IT'S OUR MONEY,NOT YOURS!"

When I was in the Army I had to take classes in first aid. One never knows what type of injuries you will encounter on the field of battle. Obviously, gun-shot wounds and shrapnel from explosions are the most common wounds. There are also wounds caused by punji sticks that were coated with excrement to cause infection, even broken bones were fairly common when falls and trips took place while climbing and walking in difficult terrain. Every soldier has some training in order to help a fallen comrade in times of trouble until medical help can be rendered by a doctor in a field hospital. All that attention is done in order to not make a bad situation worse than it already is. No soldier is left untreated on a battlefield regardless of the severity of his wounds; all efforts are made to ease the pain of any casualty of a conflict.

As a nation ,we are on an economic battlefield. The casualties of this battlefield are the unemployed and the American taxpayer. We are over-taxed and under served by our government. We currently send billions of dollars overseas in foreign aid; some is sent to nations that publicly preach against American policy. When our economy is in such a dire state, why are we sending American taxpayers' money to people who stand against us in the international forum? I think it would be a good idea to "cut them off"; let those who support their disdain for America send them the aid they seem to so desperately need! Strangely, we seem to be asking our taxpayers to take on additional burdens in the trimming of our giant deficit, rather than to cease in the disbursement of American funds to foreign lands.

Recently, President Obama has appointed a deficit panel to find ways to trim our debt and combat this failing economy. He has also extended a ban on drilling for oil in our southern gulf. The deficit panel has suggested that we add a tax to fuel. Any economist worth his salt will tell you that added fuel cost will drive up cost on all goods, and add to an inflationary spiral that America will soon face because of the printing of more dollars by the Fed. The failure to pursue more fuel in our gulf will cause us to be more dependent on foreign sources, and send a message to those oil producers to kick up those fuel prices to the United States. If we need to generate more tax, why not raise import taxes on foreign goods, including fuel. As long as we are going to be slaves to OPEC, let's get some tax money from them; not the stressed American taxpayer. Additional taxes, on any level to the American people is a STUPID IDEA! Added tax stifles investment; when investment is stifled the economy suffers, and recovery is slowed. Putting additional funds in the hands of an overgrown bureaucracy will not help the American people. I believe by now we have to admit that the "Stimulus" has stimulated little except for government jobs, which do very little for the GNP.

Mr. Obama, please stop throwing American dollars away! The American taxpayer will spend it more wisely than any bureaucrat. IT'S OUR MONEY, AND WE NEED IT NOW!!