Open Letter to Rep. Neugebauer

Randy,

I read your latest newsletter.

I am a patriotic American, and I thought the Macy Independence celebration in New York was terrific. But 4 paragraphs on Independence Day in your newsletter are too much to be covered in a basic business letter. One paragraph is enough.

Thankfully, your next item was on the country's business. You devoted three paragraphs to Pres. Obama's declaration of Texas counties as a disaster area. In reading it, I felt rather squeamish. I am certainly sorry for some difficulties caused to individuals and even companies by Texas fires during this drought, but these are facts of life. Individuals and companies should protect themselves by purchasing insurance and occasionally, through group or personal efforts, reduce local flammable materials which would jeopardize homesteads in any subsequent fire. It is basically not the responsibility of the government to come running in with taxpayer money to make restitution. Government does have the responsibility to investigate and prosecute any individuals, who have initiated the fires. Some reasonable collective government effort should also be used to protect individual houses through fire departments, although volunteer fire departments are always preferable to a socialistic government operations.

Your next item was the defense appropriation bill. I have written you separately on that, making a clear distinction between military aggression and military defense and the costs of each. I now refer to your specific figures. Cutting only $9 billion from Pres. Obama's $530 billion request is an insult to the American public, in these times of tremendous public debt and the obvious need to be radically cutting expenses. I consider radical expense cutting as in the neighborhood of 20 to 50%. The House action on defense appropriation gave us a 1.7% cut. Picayune and abominable!

I have also written you separately on your question of the week involving defense cuts and troop readiness. I've complained that this was a poorly worded question, but fortunately, Texans seem to be pretty astute and 62% apparently had a proper understanding and recommended cuts.