LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
Infrastructure and I-69
First, let me make an observation about the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the messy withdrawal by the United States. I always presumed that this would be the way our forever war would end. No one should have been surprised, including our president’s administration and our military leadership. Not everyone watched our escape from Vietnam on television as I did, but the historical records are in abundance.
I was actually encouraged at the beginning of the Afghan campaign in 2001, but it quickly became clear that the Bush-Cheney administration was not interested in Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, or the future of Afghanistan. It was obsessed with invading Iraq. President Trump announced his agreement with the Taliban that U.S. forces would leave on May 1, and President Biden continued that policy but extended the deadline to September 11. I was surprised but pleased that Biden had the courage to end that 20-year war.
Fortunately, Mr. Biden’s interests in nation-building concerns our own. Hopefully, his two infrastructure bills will represent an end to our disastrous 40-year neglect of our roads, bridges, dams, rails, power grids, social safety nets, and climate change. The Obama-Biden American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was a brief – but grossly underfunded – step in the right direction. It was primarily intended as an economic stimulus bill to prevent a second Great Depression, which it succeeded in doing. But it also provided the stimulus for jump-starting the development of affordable renewable energies: solar and wind.
The idea that the richest nation in the world can’t afford to invest in America and Americans was still accepted even at that time, so that bill was more of a bunt to move things along rather than the home run that we needed. It appears that Mr. Biden has learned that lesson and is now thinking Big instead of Small.
The Obama-Biden “stimulus bill” included a lot of “shovel-ready” projects, such as the completion of the 4-lane US 167 bypass around El Dorado. But there was another “shovel-ready” project that was conspicuously missing: the completion of I-69 through southern Arkansas and into Louisiana and Texas. And as far as I can tell, it’s not included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that recently passed
the Senate.
Neither Arkansas’s Senior Senator John Boozman or Junior Senator Tom Cotton voted for that vital bipartisan bill. Did they make any effort to include I-69 in that bill? If they had gotten I-69 into the bill would either of them have voted for it? When the bill is taken up in the House of Representatives, will our representative, Bruce Westerman, fight to get I-69 into the House version and then vote for it? After all, Senate Minority Leader Mitch “The Grim Reaper” McConnell (R- Ken.) surprised everyone by supporting the bill. Of course he did: it contains a new bridge to connect Cincinnati to Kentucky that will replace the current narrow, congested bridge that many people are afraid to drive on.
David Offutt
El Dorado
Letter to Editor
Hello Editor, here I am again complaining about our road, Gas Plant Rd., in Smackover and the people who are responsible for the condition it is in. County Judge Mike Loftin and County Supervisor Jeff Orr.
Our road has some awful pot holes in it. Back in 2018 they came out and put dusty gravel in some of the worse ones. I complained about the dust and some of the neighbors did too. The County came out and put oil on it. Then later more gravel on the oil. Smart!!
They came out at times and put more gravel on it and graded it up closer to the houses so we get more dust. Last year I asked our Justice of Peace, Cecil Polk to come out and stay for a bit when traffic goes by to see how bad the dust is. His reply was and I quote “I don’t have time to do that”. In my 86 years, I never had a job that I got paid for because, I don’t have time to do it”.
Cecil shouldn’t have one either especially since we pay him. Mike Loftin and Jeff Orr need to act like humans and do what is right instead of being so mean and evil.
Martha Gilmore
Smackover To Editor
The recent fall of Afganistan to Taliban was inevitable. The recent US troop withdrawal was the oppertune time for the Taliban to make it’s move. Not too different from Iran’s islamic revolution in 1979. The new regime has promised social rights to women, but will they follow though? Islam wants to dominate the world, and force it’s more fundamentalist views, as degredation to women, christians, and Jews. Chrisains and Jews must worship in secret. They cannot share their faith, play gospel music, read the Bible and pray in public. The Taliban will be an ever increasing menace to the Christian and Jewish communities worldwide. Christian media, like INSP, Hillsong, and TBN will be severely curbed. How will the Gospel of Jesus CHrist be spread into that part of the world? Worldwide minsitries, like Our Daily Bread, and Bible Pathways will have their work severely hampered.
Leslie Putman
El Dorado