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Government ignores honest solution to illegal immigration

Re: Illegal immigration surges by 485,000 people yearly, March 22.

Year after year, our media will continue to inform us of surging illegal immigration while an obvious practical solution is ignored. Throwing another $37-million at the problem is not the answer. Increasing the number of border guards by 2,000 a year, over five years, to supplement the 11,000 now guarding more than 6,000 miles of border will have no effect whatsoever.

Rep. John Hostettler, an Indiana Republican who chairs a subcommittee on immigration and border security, is on the right track when he reports that the government fails to punish employers who hire workers or sufficiently fund efforts to find and deport immigrants. He is also correct when he claims that it is "a little naive" to believe we are going to seal the border even with the National Guard or 20,000 to 30,000 Border Patrol agents.

Rep. Hostettler would be even more successful if he focused on the primary solution to the problem. Millions of illegal immigrants would not stream across our borders if our government and businessmen didn't welcome them with generous social benefits: food stamps, hospitalization, medical care, free schooling for their children, jobs and automatic citizenship to their newborn babies.

Millions of undocumented workers will continue to pour across our borders as long as our government persists in its agenda to avoid the honest solution and look the other way.

Catering to aliens

Re: Wal-Mart is fined but not charged, March 19.

Am I missing something? Wal-Mart just got fined $11-million for inadvertently, second handedly, hiring illegal aliens to clean their stores. At the same time, our government is pushing to have a law passed so that illegal aliens can be allowed to cross the border so they can work, probably in those same stores.

We already have a problem with illegals crossing into our country and the taxpayer having to pay for their education, housing and medical services, even though they are here illegally. It is bad enough that we have to put everything in both Spanish and English nowadays.

Iflegal aliens wish to get ahead in this country they should learn the language. If we lived in their country, we would have to learn the language to flourish. In effect by catering to their lack of language skills we are assuring that they will have problems and possibly fail in their attempts to be assimilated.

Old is in the way you think about it

Re: There's nothing wrong with being old - in fact it's great, letter, March 21.

The letter writer wrote about being old, old, old, at age 72. I am almost 86 and still don't think of myself as being old.

Because I had a heart attack 10 years ago, I have to watch my cholesterol, take pills and exercise. So I exercise by doing what I enjoy. I play tennis for an hour and a half six days a week and on the other day I ride my bike about 15 miles or so. I also mow my lawn, which takes a couple of hours each week plus the edging and the trimming. And, I volunteer at the VA hospital once or twice a week for a few hours. I also try to play the piano for an hour or so five or six evenings a week. My wife, Marion, is 78 and she keeps busy with taking care of the flowers, line dancing, and playing bridge. I don't think of her as being old either.

So I guess that feeling old is all in the way you think about it.

Yes, I've had a wealth of experiences too - 50 missions in fighter planes during World War II, being married to a wonderful woman for 58 years, raising three great children who all live within 20 miles of us, having two fine grandchildren, working for Caterpillar Tractor Co. for 31 years, and now being retired for 25 years. It's been a great life so far and maybe one of these days I will really feel old.

Hoping to get really old

Re: There's nothing wrong with being old - in fact it's great.

If the letter writer wants to consider herself old at age 72, that's her choice. However, I am the same age and I do not consider myself old: As my piano partner, also age 72, says, we are "older middle-aged people." Her mother who died last year at age 90 did not seem old to us or anyone else. She was very active, like my own aunt who died a few years ago at age 91.

I am a music teacher. My husband and I live in St. Petersburg every winter and I teach as a volunteer at a private school several hours a week. Also, my partner and I gave a very successful piano duet recital a few weeks ago, and are planning another one. My husband and I square and round dance every week, we attend many concerts and plays and we are much more active than many much younger people (all this in spite of being severely injured in a car accident last October).

Look around you and see who are the dancers, and who attend all the musical events around here. It is mostly we "old people," still fairly healthy and hoping to live until we are really old!

Try a bottle tax

I have alternately laughed and sympathized with the campaign to put a tax on toilet paper, but I think that there are better targets for our legislators.

As a cyclist, I see many examples of smashed bottles on the highway. A better tax would be a refundable charge on each glass bottle. I see that in the many states the cost is highlighted on the label.

There would obviously be revenue to the state on bottles not returned (that should make it attractive to the state government) but also it might reduce the number of smashed bottles on the road and make highways safer.

I realize that there would be an extensive campaign for rejection of such a proposal from the bottlers in the state (it also may save glass) but perhaps the environment is more important.

Thanks for the special section

Re: The Dali Times, March 19.

Well done, St. Petersburg Times, for the brilliantly conceived and illustrated Newspaper in Education special edition.

Special thanks also to A. Reynolds and Eleanor R. Morse for their generosity in sharing the Dali collection with the public and for choosing St. Petersburg to showcase the maestro's works of art.

[Last modified March 28, 2005, 01:35:09]