---

I would like to offer a different view on the Illinois Representative's guest editorial, "You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it". He states, "All of us continue to want all the things this great country provides, as long as someone else pays. The government cannot give anybody anything that the government does not first take from someone else. Until we reverse the belief that the government owes me something, which it doesn't, we will decline as a society." I think all these remarks best describe Congress. Who gives themselves more raises, perks, benefits and generous pensions that the taxpayers pay for than they do?

Taxpayers have to pay salaries, health care, vacations and pensions, etc. for millions of government employees, police, firemen and teachers while Congress has robbed Social Security, the trust fund that these taxpayers have paid into for their own retirement. They have promised so much to so many people with no thought of where the money was going to come from.[[In-content Ad]]

"When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they worked for, that is the end of any nation." There are millions of people who would like to work, but their jobs have been eliminated or sent overseas so big business can make more profit and pay their upper management millions of dollars. Where are these people supposed to find work?

I agree you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it, but when 1 or 2% of the population accumulate over half the wealth of the rest of the 98% and control the government, this is not good for democracy.

Are we ever going to find an elected body of representatives that work for the welfare of the country as a whole instead of themselves and their contributors? And why, when there are cuts to be made, it never affects their pocketbooks?

---