Reader Responses

How much pain must my neighbors feel before they dare ask why?

Have you felt the pain of high gas prices? If not, ask your neighbor if he feels the pain when he fills up so he can drive to Dallas or Tyler to work. Ask the single mom who buys groceries for growing children whether her budget feels the pain. Ask your neighbor on fixed income from Social Security if he feels the pain.

Gas prices have doubled in the past eight years. This has driven up food prices. Has your neighbor's income doubled in the past eight years? Social Security is adjusted for inflation, not counting energy and food cost increases.

(Some) analysts say the high price of gas is caused by three things: increased world demand (especially China and India); falling value of the dollar on the world market (due in large part to borrowing to finance fighting in Iraq); excessive speculation in world oil futures market.

Congress is in recess. While Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Jeb Hensarling are in Texas, dare you ask whether they voted to help bring down the price of gas. If they did not, why not? Ask if they voted against stopping excessive speculation in oil on the world market or voted against continuation of tax credits for developing alternative and renewable energy sources, such as windmills, solar, clean-burning coal and nuclear.

(Some) experts think additional drilling cannot get us out of dependence on foreign oil. Several thousand years ago the Stone Age ended, not because we ran out of stone, but because our ancestors found a better way to make tools. Today, we need to end the oil age, not because we have run out of oil, but because we must develop better ways of providing energy; ways not armful to our health and the health of the planet.

We have a choice with respect to our state Rep. Rick Noriega. The Democratic candidate strongly endorses alternative energy sources and does not believe we can drill out of the predicament we are in. His opponent voted with big oil and speculators, not with Henderson County.

Cecil Ray
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