The wealth gap
Last week, Vice President Mike Pence spoke to the Southern Baptist Convention and declared that under President Donald Trump jobs are back and the economy is booming. He forgot to mention that almost 80 percent of the wealth in the U.S. belongs to the top 10 percent, while the remaining 90 percent of us share the 20 percent that’s left.
The Bangor Daily News reported Saturday that the average wage in Maine is $11.44 an hour, and that Maine is the ninth highest state in the nation for the disparity between housing prices and earnings. One in six Mainers is food insecure. These statistics are not unrelated.
There is an employment crisis in Maine. That is what happens when workers can’t afford to live in your town and can’t afford a reliable car in order to get there. They also can’t afford a lot of other things, like health care, saving for retirement and helping their children go to college.
Is this the America you want to have or do you want something different?
There is an election in November. Consider your choices carefully and hold your elected officials accountable. Loopholes and tax breaks for the rich have not proven to be an overall economic boon. Your elected officials should be working for you.
Carey Donovan
Bernard
Poliquin values career over country
By most measures, Rep. Bruce Poliquin is a very successful man: Harvard-educated, self-made multi-millionaire, and twice elected to Congress. You might also consider him a successful politician, but I do not.
As November approaches, expect a campaign blitz portraying Poliquin as a worker bee for Maine related micro-issues. But look beneath the veneer, and you will discover who Poliquin is really working for. Poliquin is one of 60 members of the House Committee on Financial Services. Vulnerable House members are assigned to this very large committee because its lobbyists are a mother lode of money for re-election campaigns.
Money talks, and it helps explain why Poliquin fails us on the macro-issues of deficit, debt and Trump. Poliquin masquerades as a deficit hawk. He supports a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is a stupid idea because everyone knows budgets cannot be balanced during times of war and economic recessions. The national economy has been expanding for more than 7 years, and our country should now be paying down its debt. Instead, Poliquin voted to cut taxes and increase our deficit and debt.
And, finally, Poliquin has been silent on the president. Donald Trump is a stain on the presidency, and his words and deeds are undermining our democracy. And what does Poliquin say and do? Nothing, just silence. He clearly values his political career more than our country.
Stephen Freeman
Presque Isle
Outrage over Kim meeting overblown
Hugh Bowden’s opinion piece about the meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un was a classic Trump-hater’s outrage. I’m dismayed the Bangor Daily News would publish such a one-sided diatribe particularly when the Bangor Daily News serves the 2nd Congressional District of Maine that, we should remember, voted for Trump.
Think of it this way, who cares if Kim gains unearned world status so long as he follows through on his pledge to dismantle his nuclear testing and long-range missile programs, as he said he would, and we are in North Korea to ensure does so. The Singapore meeting lowered the nuclear holocaust threshold for the world.
It’s possible, of course, Kim really wants to move North Korea into the 21st century, after all he went to school in Switzerland and has seen much of developed Europe. I remember a similar diatribe about President Ronald Reagan’s meetings with Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland and again in Moscow years ago: meetings that precipitated the end of the Cold War.
Stand down all you Trump haters. Trump carries the biggest stick on the planet. We can afford to listen and possibly help Kim if he’s telling the truth and follows through.
Richard de Grasse
Islesboro