Letters to the Editor: Time To Change Country’s Direction

Time to Change Country's Direction
Editor, Times-Dispatch: A fundamental but almost never mentioned reason that the recovery from this recession is likely to be slow and anemic is that the United States is continuing to decline as an economic power, similar to what happened to the British Empire a hundred years ago.

This country has already lost a large part of its manufacturing base, and we are also witnessing the outsourcing of a good share of our highly skilled service sector jobs (information technology, engineering, industrial design, etc.). The Internet has obviously hastened this development.

This is not to say that many American companies will not continue to do well in the global economy (more than 50 percent of the earnings of the S&P 500 companies now come from overseas), but their success is not commensurately redounding to American workers because an increasing amount of production is done in foreign countries.

There is probably little we can do to resist our country's economic decline unless we reinvent ourselves, as companies often have to do to survive over the long term. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has recommended that the U.S. use this as an opportunity to become the technological leader in green energy (whether or not one believes in global warming), but we are already losing that race to China and other countries.

Just as the credit and housing bubbles of the past decade obscured the true state of our economic condition, the depth of the current recession has highlighted the challenges that we face. It's time to decide as a country in what strategic direction we want to go, and whether we are willing to make the necessary sacrifices and investments to regain our economic prowess. In the meantime, we need to get used to a lower standard of living.

John Clark.
Richmond.

Why is economic achievement viewed as an ATM for failing programs? Why try to succeed at all if all one can expect is a dirty look and a bill for more taxes? If a family made $150,000 and had three or four children, maybe even some in college, I'm sure they wouldn't think of themselves as wealthy. In fact, these families already account for most of the tax revenues. They should be held up as models of what can be accomplished if you stay in school, save your money, work hard at a job to gain experience, and perhaps open your own business.

I also resent comments about wealthy seniors receiving untaxed Social Security benefits. Throughout their earning years, those seniors paid Social Security taxes out of their wages. When they file their income taxes, if they make a certain level of income, they are taxed again on the benefits they earned. That's double taxation in any language.

My husband and I met then-Sen. Joe Biden several years ago. My husband questioned Biden as to what he could do in Congress about the situation with the double taxation. The senator agreed that it was double taxation but that nothing would be done about it because it brought in too much money. He said, "Social Security is just welfare to the elderly."

Sure, Gov. Bob McDonnell will have tough choices to make, but cuts can be made across the board. None, however, should include additional taxes on Virginia citizens and especially not on successful people who lead the way and make jobs possible.

Barbara Gestwick.
Richmond.

The recent news story, "Full Load at Power Agency," reported that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is handling 31 applications for new nuclear reactors in the United States. This new generation of reactors is supposed to increase America's nuclear generating capacity by 20 percent. I welcome this expansion of America's nuclear capacity as a solution to many of our energy challenges. Of the three large-scale electricity sources in this country -- nuclear, coal, and natural gas -- nuclear is by far the cleanest as it generates virtually zero carbon emissions.

One important point the article failed to mention, however, is that while expanding America's nuclear capacity, we must also simultaneously expand our domestic supply of nuclear fuel.

America imports almost 90 percent of our uranium from foreign countries. Unless we start developing a domestic supply in places like Coles Hill in Southside Virginia, then building new reactors will only deepen our dependence on foreign uranium. The Coles Hill deposit in Pittsylvania County has enough uranium to fuel Virginia's nuclear capacity for more than 65 years. Virginia gets more than 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear.

Additionally, this is a great opportunity for job creation and economic growth in economically distressed Southside. On several levels -- clean energy, job creation, and energy independence -- we cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

Mark Falls.
Richmond.