Biden speech and response: divides or conquers?

Re: “Biden to the nation, world: ‘America is rising anew’,” April 29 news story

I just watched the presidential address and the Republican response. I would really like someone to count the numbers of inclusive, collaborative, encouraging, inviting words/ phrases, in each compared to the divisive, negative ones.

I am old enough to remember the Roosevelt and Eisenhower years; once the votes were in everyone tried to act united — at least till the next campaign.

Gail Ryan, Lakewood

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Let’s hear from the rich. Are you folks opposed to paying more in taxes? Do you find the current burden too much? Will you have to cut back on the little things like cable or a movie night-out?

I’ve never heard a truly wealthy person on the letters-to-the-editor page bemoaning the amount of money they pay to support the nation’s burdens. Will President Joe Biden’s proposals at long last bring you here to complain? Seriously, I’d love to hear from you.

Harry Puncec, Lakewood

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In his speech to Congress and the nation Wednesday, Biden proposed new spending of $6 trillion. That is $6,000,000,000,000.

Let me try to make those numbers understood. A million dollars consists of a $1,000 dollars times 1,000. A billion dollars is a million x 1,000 and a trillion is a billion x 1,000.

Since they don’t have that money it is going to have to come from somewhere. Either the government can print more money, which they have done for the pandemic stimulus payments, which only causes inflation since your money is worth less and therefore causes things to cost more, or the government can and will tax people and corporations. Since corporations really don’t pay taxes but pass taxes on in higher prices to the American public, the bottom line is, we, the American people (not only the rich) will be paying thousands more in taxes to pay for President Biden’s (the Democrat’s) drunken-sailor spending.

The last year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the federal government took in $3.42 trillion in revenue, the most in history.

Our national debt is more than $28 trillion. For the 2020 fiscal year, the interest on the national debt was $345 billion.

We do not have a revenue problem we (our government) have an overspending problem.

It’s obvious we cannot afford to do what he plans to do. This country is not bankrupt yet, but when is all this spending unsustainable?

Steve Gehrke, Aurora