It doesn't help either that

between 1996 and 1998, Medicare paid out more than $56 billion in improper

payments, and in one year, 1999, $13.5 billion was lost by fraud and mismangement

in the Medicare system. Instead of cleaning up the system, Democrats want

to expand it.

Between 1991 and 1998, the

U.S. population grew 7 percent; however, during the same period, disability

payments grew 47 percent. Does this mean that we granted citizenship to

only disabled people, or did a lot more folks figure out how to get the

taxpayer's money? It also may be of interest that AARP is pushing a four-point

agenda that includes Medicare-provided drug benefits and long-term care

insurance. Why does AARP want my children and grandchildren to take care

of them with their taxes? Didn't they once work for a living?

Clinton-Gore know they can't

sell socialized medicine to the American people, so they call it Medicare

or Medicaid instead of what it is. Instead of telling us that the state

should raise our children in day care-school-clinic centers as Fidel Castro

does in Cuba, they say, "It takes a village to raise a child."

They insult us by calling us

bigots, homophobes and extremists, and insist we cannot look beyond race,

gender or sexual proclivity to see character and competence. Therefore,

we must hire, promote, proclaim and worst of all prosecute crime on the

basis of quotas, always avoiding any suggestion of racial profiling. (Isn't

racial profiling the essence of quotas? Never mind.)

The Democrats tell us they

will fight big oil, the pharmaceuticals and tobacco. What will they do,

nationalize them? Will that make them better?

We will have gas at $5 a gallon,

no new developments in drugs because there will be no money to put into

research, and the same smokes at $10 a pack (at least most kids couldn't

buy them).

We'll all live in high rises

to combat sprawl, and inhale the smoke from forest fires that burn constantly

in woods that are overgrown and unlogged and that we are prohibited from

visiting because there are no roads and we can't afford the gas to get

there anyway.

So, take the family to a movie?

What, and subject them to the language and situations produced by the

Democrats' biggest supporters, the Hollywood elite?

Heck, just vote for anybody

but a Democrat and save us all this trouble.

William Fielder

Peachtree City