Letter: Ideology and our big government debt

Discussion

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February 14, 2013

Letter: Ideology and our big government debt

Anonymous Gloucester Daily Times The Gloucester Daily Times Thu Feb 14, 2013, 12:00 AM EST

To the editor:

Well folks I’m going out on a limb here. I’m going to assume that Milt Lauenstien (letters, the Times, Tuesday, Feb. 12) is of my generation — and if he is, how’d he reach where he is without working for it?

Did Uncle Sam just hand him a windfall? I learned my work ethic during the war years of the 1940s and ‘50’s, and prayed that the draft wouldn’t snatch me away to the war of the ‘60s and ‘70s in Vietnam.

As that war ended, I banked my first million; and two years later just gave away my Amoco gas station, Bodyshop, Boat, and House, until all my earnings were gone. I then started over working as a custodian in a university’s dormitories. I was earning $4K per year cleaning toilets for messy kids, and by hard work, worked my way up to $36K per year, in the same maintenance department.

I retired, added my pension to my Social Security, opened a small Christian bookstore and wound up giving my inventory away, spending the next 20 years giving away my time and expertise to those that could not afford professional help. Those 20 years earned me an honorary doctorate on top of my other degrees.

Milt, it’s not the money you can earn, but what you can give to your fellow man, out of your heart. Taking from the haves to give to the have nots, is just redistribution of wealth, to feed your ideology. Ideology should not have anything to do with what you give another.

Our country is $16 trillion-plus dollars in debt.

From the tone of your letter, I’d guess that you could pay my $51,000 share of that debt, because I’ve already given away all I’ve worked for, and have nothing left to give our big government.

Remember, folks, “A government big enough to give you all you need and want is big enough to take all you have.”

Then what?

GERALD MAHIEU

Langsford Street, Gloucester