We must stop relying on government handouts

by Lewis Loflin

This was in regards to FEMA turning down Federal money for tornado damage in Washington County, Virginia. The fighting was over blaming present Congressman Morgan Griffith for it and claiming former Congressman Rick Boucher, with his close ties to President Obama, would have gotten the money. Besides the whole corrupt aspect of that view, others believe the money was blocked by Obama in retaliation for Boucher's defeat in 2010.

My point is simply this region is a welfare basket case that always expects and demands money from others to pay for their problems. The welfare state has destroyed the self-reliance the people here once had and reduced them to wards of the state.

This was also a response to a liberal political activist the Herald Courier placed on their so-called reader advisory panel whose husband wasted millions in government grants with zero to show for it. They edited that part out.

Note the Wall Mart jobs I mentioned cost taxpayers $238 million, Grundy is a town of 1000 people. The Lebanon job fiasco was the Northrop Grumman deal from 2005 where they received a $2.2 billion Virginia State outsourcing contract and continue to crash the state computer system. One person that dared question the deal was fired from his job.

The Herald Courier itself finally checked into it and found zero economic growth in Lebanon just as I predicted. Russell County lost another 5 percent of its population for its efforts. The healthcare figures came from the Herald Courier itself in 2008.

Published June 30, 2011 Bristol Herald Courier:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is under the control of President "Hope and Change" who by the way has not gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, then starts another war with Libya. Tennessee didn't get FEMA merely because of East Tennessee, but widespread damage across the state.

President "Hope and Change" has continued the same destructive Wall Street policies of President George Bush. Where are the prosecutions for fraud? Where is an end to unregulated derivatives and hedge fund trading? Two years of Democratic rule has produced zero.

Let's discuss the 28 years of Rick Boucher's policies. According to Virginia Department of Social Services poverty increased across the region from 1997 to 2007 even here in Washington County before the latest Wall Street debacle.

According to Kiplinger's Best Cities, Washington County-Bristol has the highest cost of living relative to the lowest median family income in Virginia and Tennessee.

Regarding health care, the region still ranks in the bottom 10 percent in the nation.

And where are the jobs? Where is the proof that the 1,000 new high-tech jobs promised in Lebanon ever materialized? And why does an IT job in this region pay 60 percent less than in the rest of Virginia? That's just wrong.

In Grundy, they did get some high paying Walmart jobs. They're wasting another $3 billion on the Coalfields "pork barrel" Expressway that will produce nothing (except big profits for Halliburton) while VDOT is starved for funding and can't fix our roads.

Yes my property is damaged too from the storms and as a veteran, yes cut the military and get our troops home.

It's about time we rely on each other and end the dependence on government welfare in all forms.

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, Va.