Fair share

Dear Editor:Just heard President Obama's latest speech Aug. 11. My! Oh my! What strong leadership his is trying to present - and I do mean "trying." Let's go back to the two years he was in Congress. Seventy-six percent of his votes were not "yes" or "no" but "present." Sounds like grammar school attendance. His more recent performances - he signed his healthcare bill, though Democrats thought it unnecessary to read. Well, we found out that it is another "entitlement" adding billions if not trillions to our bloated federal debt, as is Obama's new entitlement-free birth control pills, care for women who nurse their babies and all birth-related programs, adding more money to our entitlement deficits. If a couple wants to conceive a child, fine. Since I have no say in the matter, I don't want to pay for it. Neither do I want to pay Planned Parenthood to murder babies. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Why do they think that we, as taxpayers, are responsible for them? Why am I responsible to support not only K-12 education for people who have entered the U.S. illegally? Now we are responsible for their college education, even though we don't know if they are college material. All of this in the light of college graduates not being able to find a job and are in debt for college loans they can't pay. There was a time when people saved for college or, heaven forbid, worked their way through college or got scholarships. We have become so dependent on government for everything and they were more than willing to buy our vote then put us so deeply in debt. But now we can no longer pay for everything and must, in a responsible way, find ways to cut back, so the younger generation will also benefit from the money they have paid into the system. More entitlements is not the answer. -- Elsa Van Leuven, Downey

********** Published: August 18, 2011 - Volume 10 - Issue 18