Government should help traumatized veterans
Several mass shootings have been committed not by boogeymen immigrants but by ex-military personnel. It’s obvious that Congress will never budge on their resistance to gun safety measures even when the massacres have included children, so how about this? Switch your focus from protecting Second Amendment rights to providing legislative funding and psychiatric support to veterans returning from traumatic overseas tours, where they were trained and then commanded to kill for our country.
They served for us. Now they deserve service from us. That is something everyone should agree on regardless of their political stripe.
Roger Popp Kissimmee
Face the truth about our nation
The time has come when we must admit that we are no longer a benevolent nation.
In these heated political times, we no longer care for our fellow man, no matter their circumstances. We see fellow human beings killed, and we don’t care. We witness injustice after injustice, and we shrug our shoulders. We see people starving in other countries, as well as our own, and we destroy warehouses full of food. We allow people who have a public platform to say that the homeless should be killed, and we say nothing in return.
We see people who don’t look like us come to work, and watch as they are grabbed and chained and transported out of our country because they were standing on our land, and we say nothing.
We watch injustices every day that we feel helpless to do anything about, so we do nothing.
We keep allowing these things to happen in our name.
We keep allowing and allowing.
We are no longer the home of the brave.
We are currently writing a very sad chapter in American history.
The great contemporary poet Maya Angelou once said, “If you allow someone to pull a hair from your head, and you do not object, they will not stop until you are bald.”
America, we are bald.
Mary Sharpe Lady Lake
Tax uncertainty
Tax relief or a Tallahassee power grab? Do the math.
Local property taxes provide the bulk of local government revenue. Sales and excise taxes provide much of state government revenue.
Eliminating local property taxes would not impact the state, but they would have to be replaced.
By what? Higher sales taxes will disproportionately impact seniors and families — and Tallahassee will control the revenue.
Look at your tax bill. You won’t find a “property tax” line. Ad valorem (“according to value”) taxes, based on property values, pay for schools, police, public hospitals and many other services. If property taxes are eliminated, the money has to come from somewhere.
Richard Carlson Deerfield Beach
What would ‘Shark Tank’ say to DeSantis?
Picture this: What if Gov. Ron DeSantis brought his business proposal for removing state income taxes before the sharks on the popular TV series “Shark Tank”? Mr. Wonderful would say that “This is not a problem that needs to be solved.” Mark Cuban might ask, “Don’t those taxes pay for schools, police, firefighters and roads?”
Lori Greiner would add that she heard the state of Florida has been trying to solve a homeowners insurance problem for several years. That is the best ‘business plan’ to help your Florida constituents prone to hurricanes and floods.”
Let your Florida state representatives know we need affordable and effective homeowners insurance for all.
Gayle Schurig Orlando
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