Obama is unsatisfactory

Four years ago, gas was $3.27 a gallon, unemployment 6.1 percent. Our president spent trillions, did not close Guantanamo and doubled the troops in Afghanistan.

Played golf more than 100 times, has not met with his jobs advisers this year. The president does not want to drill for oil or support the coal industry.

My car does not run on wind-generated power. President Barack Obama has nothing to run on except bashing GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney, who happens to have business experience.

Be honest, are you really satisfied?

Wayne Simpson

Overland Park

Pivotal vote ahead

For the next two months, Republicans will do everything they can to take health care away from you or someone you know. They will go all out to elect people to both houses of Congress and state legislatures whose main goal is to repeal the health care act, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional.

If they succeed, you can lose your health care if you get cancer and exceed your insurance policy’s cost limit. Or if you are uninsured now and develop diabetes, obesity or any other pre-existing condition.

Or if you graduate from college and have no job to go to or if you come down with any other conditions.

The health care act protects you in all these situations. But Republicans want to get control of the state legislatures, Congress and the White House so they can do away with all those protections and many others. People who vote Republican in November will help them do just that.

If you have a conscience, think about how you vote.

John Hartmeyer

Overland Park

GM challenge for U.S.

To all those who advocate “buy American,” Dan Akerson, chief executive officer of our government-owned car company, General Motors, recently stated that seven out of 10 GM vehicles were built outside of the U.S. And General Motors continues to lose our investment dollars.

Was that a great program or what?

Bill Wood

Overland Park

Romney promises

I was amused to see that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan recently promised they would help women start businesses if they were elected in November. Someone didn’t do their homework.

We already have that. Women who own businesses are considered a minority. We get help from the Small Business Administration for being a minority.

Romney and Ryan promised us something we already have. Isn’t that funny?

Donna Cox

Independence

Romney is out of touch

Ann Romney said, “Women don’t care about contraception; they care about the economy.”

I have news for Mrs. Romney. A women’s ability to control her own reproduction, to determine for herself when and if she will have children, how many and at what intervals is absolutely vital and totally germane to her personal economy and that of her family.

In this day and age, the size of most families is a financial decision as well as a cultural one.

Politicians or their privileged wives claiming otherwise are either completely dishonest or utterly detached from reality.

Terry Cracraft

Kansas City

Hartzler bad for district

Voters of the 4th District, our congresswoman, Vicky Hartzler, just doesn’t get it. She recently sent out an email telling how much she cares for senior citizens.

What hypocrisy. She has signed on to Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” plan, which cuts the throats of the elderly and middle class.

Just look at Wikipedia’s “The Path to Prosperity” take on Ryan’s budget along with the Huffington Post business page on the subject, which shows 10 ways Ryan’s budget plan hurts Americans. An NPR.org article on the plan shows how much Ryan’s budget hurts the elderly.

Hartzler, a tea party darling of the far right, supports everything in Ryan’s budget, including large tax cuts to the wealthiest of the wealthy and large companies, especially big oil. We in the 4th District deserve better than this.

We need a replacement in November.

George Wheeldon

Archie, Mo.

Bad deal on bulbs

Whose “bright” idea was it to phase out regular light bulbs in favor of energy-saving bulbs that are supposed to last five years? General Electric claims you save $44 in energy per bulb.

I just had to replace one that was less than 2 years old. I paid almost 10 times more for a package of three.

They are guaranteed, but I will have to wait until the other two bulbs blow, wrap up the container and receipt, and use gas and a postage charge to send them back.

Some people don’t have recycling available to them. Some people don’t bother.

These energy-smart bulbs contain mercury. They have to be recycled appropriately.

How many people will spend their time and gas to go to Home Depot or some place that will accept them? How many bulbs will end up in a landfill?

Karen Bradley

Independence

Obama’s understanding

Speaking as one whose mother relied on a monthly welfare check and government commodity food for our family’s survival, I tend to take it personally when some on the right blame and criticize President Barack Obama for growing up poor and having to eat things that were not nutritional when the president was a child.

Frankly, I want a leader like Obama, who has “walked in my shoes” and understands my pain.

I don’t want a leader like Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has no idea what it feels like to live in poverty and who dares to publicly bet his friend Rick Perry $10,000 as if that amount were mere pennies. (To him, I’m sure it is.)

Call it class warfare if you wish, but if I had the money, I would bet $10,000 that many of you who have walked in our shoes and who continue to struggle to make ends meet will yet again vote against your own best interests in November.

Eddie L. Clay

Grandview

Illegal immigration

President Barack Obama has permitted thousands of illegal immigrants to get legal status so they can bring better knowledge to the United States, which also will create more difficulty for people to get jobs. But Obama does not want to stop illegal immigrants.

Several U.S. cities have great problems, but not much is done to stop the problems. I wonder, is Obama is trying to govern Mexico?

Rex Newbold

Shawnee

Mental health and guns

The attitude in our country toward gun availability and the mental health problems in our society will force us to change our lifestyles. It is gradually reaching the point where you are placing your family in danger if you attend any large gathering unless a well-armed guard is provided.

The only requirement the sick mind has to kill is that you are breathing.

Ed Regan

Overland Park

Tickets for pedestrians

If funds are dry as the weather, perhaps Kansas City officials can replay the cameras that catch motorists running red lights at intersections and send tickets to pedestrians who are caught on “don’t walk” signals as they cross in front of cars and buses.

Chaos on roads is not good.

James Cooley

Kansas City

Dear thoughtless drivers

Thank you for allowing me to slam on my brakes while driving 60 mph on the highway because your interpretation of yield was to merge. Thank you for going 20 mph slower than the speed limit after entering said highway, all the while looking in your rear-view mirror wondering why traffic was backing up behind you.

Thank you for having to make or take that all-important phone call that allows you to immediately slow down 10 mph because of your multitasking skills, and then to suddenly speed up for a half-mile only to slow down again.

Thanks to all of those who feel the need to text while driving. You have skillful driving techniques of weaving in and out of lanes, controlling the speed of traffic with stop-and-go movement and the ability of seeing the road ahead through the reflection of your handheld device while blending in with surrounding traffic.

Thanks for driving in the left lane and ignoring the cars going by you in the right lane because you feel more comfortable on the left side of the road. Your look of astonishment while being passed is entertaining.

Tim Thomas

Kansas City

KC Chiefs’ new season

A new season, same old story. Well-paid men in natty uniforms of red and white (with some yellow trim) take to the field of battle and promptly get trounced more often than not.

O Romeo, Romeo, where art thou football players? Hither comes yet another season of our discontent.

Pray, let us suffer not. Surrender now, lest ye be shamed.

Perry Davis

Houston Lake