Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 68, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Page: 4 of 10
ten pages : ill. 24 x 12 in. Digitized from 35 mm microfilm.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
•. > . *v
e‘ «" r
Viewpoints
Page 4 ■ Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sweetwater Reporter
DEDICATED TO PROUDLY DEUVERINC, LOCAL NEWS SINCE 1881
Sweetwater
^ OVVCC L VVclLCI I
Keporter
P.O. Box 750/112 W. Third
Sweetwater, Texas 79556
325/236-6677
Fax: 325/2354967
Website:
www.sweetwaterreporter com
E-mail addresses:
publisher@sweetwaterreporter. com
business@sweetwaterreporter.com
advertising@sweetwaterreporter com
circulation@sweetwateeeporter com
editor@sweetwaterreporter.com
composing@sweetwaterreporter. com
publisher
Danica Hickson
business mgr.
advertising mgr.
Terry Garza
circulation mgr.
Tatiana Rodriguez
managing editor
Pablo Rodriguez
composing mgr.
Rleu Reyes
production mgr
GUST COLUMN
What does American Heart Month mean?
EDITORIAL POLICY
The editorial section of the newspaper is a forum for expres-
sion of a variety of viewpoints. All articles except those labeled
“Editorials" reflect the opinions of the writers and not those of
the Sweetwater Reporter.
Edwin
Feulner
lynnAnn
Duriven
GUEST COLUMN
A sham ‘stimulus”
If there's any good news from this recession, it may be this:
We’ve seen how Washington works. The picture is so ugly, it
may be enough to spark real reform in the years ahead. I lere’s
what’s been going on:
Every so often Congress gets hold of a bill
that simply must pass. A defense spending bill,
say, during war time. So lawmakers exploit the
situation, tacking on pet projects that have
nothing to do with defense.
This year’s must-pass hill is a “stimulus”
measure.
True to form, Congress has loaded the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 with hundreds of billions in wasteful
spending. The bill includes $650 million for
digital TV coupons, $140 million to study the
atmosphere and $50 million for the National
Endowment for the Arts.
None of these proposals would create jobs or
boost our economy. They’re just old-fashioned
waste. And that’s a problem. Crying “stimulus." Congress
intends to spend money it doesn't have to accomplish things
that don't need to be done on a scale never before seen. If signed
into law, this leviathan would be the largest single spending hill
ever passed, adding at least $819 billion (before interest) to the
national debt.
If lawmakers had decided to borrow the money for this stim-
ulus plan directly from Americans, the average family would
have to fork over $10,520 this year. That’s more than what that
same family will spend on food, clothing and health care for the
entire year.
If lawmakers were honest about what they’re doing (spending
borrowed money) they’d have to admit that they’re asking hard-
pressed American families to loan the government more this
year than those families will otherwise spend on essentials.
Of course, the government won’t borrow directly from
Americans. It’ll attempt to raise the money on the international
bond market, meaning our country will go deeper into debt to
foreign lenders, especially Japan and China.
And what will this spending accomplish? Not much.
The Congressional Budget Office studied the “stimulus' pack-
age, and found only about half the money lawmakers want to
spend will be used this year or next. In other words, it ’s not a jolt
to the economy, it’s pointless as stimulus, and the lawmakers
who voted for it must know that.
Their real goal seems to be to expand the government. This
bill includes some $140 billion for education -- almost twice
what the Education Department spent all of last year. It also
aims to pump $35 billion extra into the Department of Energy,
a stunning sum since DOE’s current annual budget is $23.8 bil-
lion.
Once these bureaucracies expand, good luck trimming them
back. They’re apt to be as temporary as the New Deal Rural
Development Utilities Programs.” Its mission to electrify rural
American was completed decades ago, vet it still exists.
Politicians think they can palm most anything off as “stimu-
lus." An early version of the bill, for example, included hundreds
of millions for contraceptives. “The family planning services
reduce cost,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained while
defending the plan on ABC, “to the states and to the federal gov-
ernment." That’s arguable at best.
Still, even if that were true, reducing the birthrate would be a
pretty slow-motion way of reducing federal costs. It would be
faster and more efficient to axe a department or two instead.
Luckily, the contraception spending was axed once people
became aware of it. That proves that, when the public pays
attention — and complains — lawmakers will do the right thing.
Hopefully it’s the beginning of a trend.
February is American Heart Month.
What does that really mean? 'People
are really good about naming months
or days with certain themes. However,
if you don’t hear
anything else about
it, will you really
ever know what it
means?
Well, let me dis-
cuss this one with
you. As American
Heart Month,
February is the
month that encour-
;es you to be aware
heart disease.
With the ever grow-
ing obesity issue,
especially in Texas,
heart disease is on
the rise, too.
Why does being overweight increase
our risk of heart disease? I remember
hearing a speaker at a conference tell
us that for every five pounds of extra
weight we carry, that is 100 more
miles of blood vessels are heart has to
pump to. I don't know where he got
this information or how accurate it is,
but it does make some sense. The
more fat we are storing, the further
our blood has to be pumped working
our heart pretty hard.
Our heart is a muscle, just like our
biceps in our arms. Imagine what
your biceps would look like if you
worked them out for an hour everyday.
Amazing, right? That is what exercise
does to our hearts - gives it a good
workout - makes it stronger.
Now imagine if you worked your
biceps all day everyday. Over time, the
muscle tissue is going to break down
because there is no down time to let it
rest and restructure. The same thing
happens to our hearts, essentially.
When you are overweight, your hearts
are working over time all the time.
And this doesn’t even take into
account if we have high cholesterol or
high blood sugar, both of which make
the blood thicker and even harder to
pump. So imagine, being overweight
and having high cholesterol - how
hard is your heart pumping to get that
thick blood throughout the body that
has extra weight on it? Pretty hard.
So, American Heart Month is
designed to make you more aware of
these things. Here is some more
awareness: Are you at risk for heart
disease? Many people think about it
being more of a “man’s” disease. Let
me tell you that heart disease is the
number one killer of both men and
women in the United States!
Here are some factors that will
increase your risk:
• a previous heart attack or angina
• family history
• diabetes
• high blood cholesterol
• high blood pressure
• cigarette smoking
• being overweight
• being physically inactive
If you nave any of these factors, it
might be worth mentioning to your
health care provider (if you haven’t
already) during your physical this
year.
If you are really concerned about it,
and want to know what you can do
right now to decrease your risk, here
are some ideas:
• Eat lean meats (frying lean meats
negates the lean
• broiling or grilling is better)
• Use skim or low-fat dairy products
(The only time in life that it is neces-
sary to drink whole milk is between
the ages of 1 and 2.)
• Use Unsaturated vegetable oils and
margarine
• Cut down on sugar consumption —
extra sugar stores in the body as fat
• Read nutrition labels - be aware of
w'hat you are eating. By simply being
aware, many times we will be sur-
prised by how much fat we are con-
suming, and therefore try to make it
better.
If you would like more information
regarding heart disease, healthy eating
or nutrition, feel free to contact mv
office at 235-3184. You may also visit
our website at http://fcs.tamu.edu .
LynnAnn Duniven is the County
Extension Agent for Family and Consumer
Sciences in Nolan County. Comments about
this column may be e-mailed to
editor@sweetujaterTcporter.com.
Edwin Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation
(www.heritage.org), a Washington based public policy
research institute. Comments annul this column may Ire
emailed to editor@sweetwaterreporter.com.
Letter to the Editor Policy
The Sweetwater Reporter welcomes letters to the Editor for
possible publication in the newspaper. A letter must be original,
limited to 300 words or less, signed by the writer, and bear the
address and phone number of the writer. (Inly the name and the
city will be published with the letter, but the phone number and
address are necessary for verification or clarification of content.
The Sweetwater Reporter reserves the right to edit all letters.
If deemed derogatory, libelous, unclear or for other reasons
determined by tne newspaper to be unwise to print, it will not
be used.
It is the feeling of the newspaper that an unsigned letter has
little meaning, and thus it will not publish anonymous letters to
the editor.
During elections, the Sweetwater Reporter will accept letters
to the Editor discussing the issues or offering endorsements.
However, the deadline for letters during elections will be two
weeks prior to election day.
The publishing of letters to the Editor are offered by the
newspaper to the community for expression of personal views
on matters of concern. Residents are encouraged to use the col-
umn in a constructive manner, sharing their views on subjects
of interest with the newspaper’s readers.
Another two bite the dust
It was not a good day for I understand that accoun-
ethics in government. tants make mistakes. But a
First, White House lien on your house is not the
Performance Chief-
nominee Nancy
Killefer, who had two
nannies and a personal
assistant — as we work-
ing mothers would say,
a really LOT of help for
teenagers — withdrew
her candidacy after it
emerged that D.C. had
gone so far as to put a
lien on her fancy house
for failure to pay pay-
roll taxes.
Then, Tom Daschle,
the much liked and
admired former Senate major-
ity leader, withdrew as the
nominee for Secretary of
Health and Human Services
after it became clear that no
one was buying his story that
he thought having a car and
driver for three years was just
a nice gesture from a friend
that didn't have any tax conse-
quences for him.
All of this came literally
hours after the president
scolded Wall Street -- but did
not take back anv of that
bailout money - for having
awarded themselves some-
thing in excess of $20 billion
in bonuses for having ruined
the American, and maybe the
global, economy.
Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner is one lucky guy:
Sometimes the first jerk out of
the box is the only one who
makes it to first.
What planet are these peo-
ple living on?
Or mavbe the right question
is: What’s wrong with the rest
of us?
Susan
Esdich
first response to an
accountant's mistake.
It’s a last-ditch effort
to collect taxes from
someone who has
refused to pay.
As for Geithner, it
wasn't just his
accountants who
made a mistake. He
signed papers
acknowledging that
lie owed the taxes and
still didn't pay them.
And Daschle? Did
Daschle really think
that friends give friends cars
and drivers for three years
expecting nothing in return,
just a friendly gift that doesn't
have to be considered income?
Why don't I have friends like
these? Why did 1 lose money in
the relatively modest accounts
I've set up for my retirement
and mv kids' education only to
have the people who lost it for
me reward themselves with
big bonuses? I thought you got
a minus for making money,
not losing it. Silly me.
There is something funda-
mentally rotten at the tippity-
top of our economy, and I'm
not talking about the bad loans
that TARP is supposed to
cover. I'm talking about a
mentality that crosses party
and gender lines and extends
at least from Washington to
New York, if not to Los
Angeles and Chicago and some
other big cities, that seems to
be based on the notion that the
rich have a rii
no matter wl
result; that people who can
Hein at home
don't have any obligation to
pay into the system that pro-
tects those people if they're
injured on the job; that cars
and drivers go with the turf,
nothing special, nothing to
trigger questions, let alone tax
obligations.
Taxes? Who worries about
taxes?
The answer is that most
Americans do.
I remember as a kin, grow-
ing up, my father struggling to
pay his taxes every year,
ashamed when he couldn't,
endlessly stressed when he fell
behind, but never, not once,
even tempted to cheat, under-
state his income or ignore his
obligations. I le died owing the
IRS money, and I know the
stress he felt. The shame con-
tributed to his heart stopping,
but 1 didn't blame the IRS for
it.
I've never been good at com-
ing up with dodges or shelters
or any of that. 1 put aside the
money, pay in quarterly,
relieved that I can do it. I pay
the taxes for my babysitter
(one in help, thanks) and for
my consulting income, and I
don't think I deserve a gold
star for doing it. And I don't
expect to ever be appointed to
anything. It's just right. It’s
what tens of millions of
Americans who make less than
Daschle and Killefer and
Geithner and me do every day,
and if it means they can't buy a
home or a new car or afford
three in help, so be it.
It’s not about ethics in gov-
ernment, not really. Just about
right and wrong.
To find out moie about Susan
Estiich and read features by
other Creators Syndicate wat-
ers and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate website at
www.crcaiors.com.
•ight to get richer
vlio suiters as a
The SWEETWATER REPORTER
(USPS 5300 8601 is published dally
except Saturdays and holidays by
HPC ol Texas. Inc (Periodical
Postage Paid) 112 W. 3rd,
Sweetwater, texas 79556
Postmaster Send address changes
to SWEETWATER REPORTER
P.O BOX 750,
SWEETWATER, TEXAS 79556
Cily Delivery $8 50 per month, $85.00
per year, 6 months $45 50,
3-months $24.75 By mail $75 per
year in oui retail liadmg /one. Othei
rales available on request
Correction Policy
Editorial:
As a matter of policy, the
Sweetwater Reporter will
publish corrections of errors
in fact that have been print-
ed in the newspaper.
The corrections will be
made as soon as possible
after the error has been
brought to the attention of
the newspaper’s editor at
236-6677.
Advertising:
Publisher reserves the right
to reject, edit or cancel any
advertising at any time with-
out liability. Publisher’s liabil-
ity for error is limited to the
amount paid for advertising.
Reporter
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Rodriguez, Tatiana. Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 68, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 4, 2009, newspaper, February 4, 2009; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth576992/m1/4/: accessed July 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.