Archived Opinion

A thank you to our elected officials

To the Editor:

I’d like to thank the state House of Representatives for putting rich white kids first in North Carolina with your vote on May 3. It’s about time! I am so tired of these hard working, poor and minority children who go to school everyday trying to make their lives better in the only safe environment they know.

I want to thank you for creating jobs in North Carolina, specifically at the ESC to handle the larger unemployment lines coming our way in the next few years. It will feel good to get rid of these high-paid, fat-cat teacher assistants, counselors, school nurses, custodians and secretaries that help to feed and put clothes on the backs of these little leaches on society. The $600,000 House Bill 351 alone will take care of the salaries of seven teaching assistants right away, and showing my driver’s license when I vote will always trump a child’s welfare in my book.

I applaud you for your efforts! I know that you really want to look into the faces of these children as you sign the bills to eliminate the positions of the only trustworthy person in their lives; however, I can understand that it is probably more beneficial to your busy schedule not to mention your re-election campaigns to pass the responsibility of job layoffs to the State Board of Education. Why become involved with the needs and concerns of your constituents now? After all, life is like golf, lowest score wins! And now, you’ve put North Carolinaright on par to take the lead!

House representatives, I want to thank you for helping Art Pope, your very own “Skip” Stam, and of course your campaign contributing friend Bob Luddy to make some money off of these kids backs. You could have done the easy thing and continued the 1 cent sales tax that 70 percent of North Carolinians support, maybe even closed the captive Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) tax loophole that would actually generate income from big corporations who owe back taxes here in North Carolina. Or any number of smaller cuts in different areas, but you didn’t so thanks.

Really, we didn’t hire you to be creative thinkers, and you certainly haven’t disappointed. I want to thank you for the sound financial advice I have learned from you. From now on when I am in financial straits at home I will cut out my food budget and stop cashing my paycheck! Because I know that not feeding myself and having no income to pay the bills will always keep me healthy and get me out of debt.

N.C. House Representatives, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! The great state of North Carolina thanks you! I am sure that kids who are affected by the elimination of the state’s dropout prevention programs and the other members of the gangs they join will be thanking you and the rest of us some time in the near future as well. Especially when you have to cut law enforcement jobs in the next budget because God knows those people will be sucking the life out of our state by then! That however is for another letter, for another time.

Frederick Sean Parnell

Hickory

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