To the editor:

I am very concerned about Congress and the Senate, voting to take 880 billion dollars out of the budget for the Dept. of Commerce and Energy.

The Dept. of Commerce and Energy (as everyone knows) covers vital programs that help so many Americans. For example: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nursing home care, programs for children and ole coots, the handi-capped and disabled and Food Stamps, to mention a few. How many people in Bell County depend on these services?

230 billion from agriculture — Oh Snap! The program I mean, is gone now. The farmers are gonna miss Food Stamps, which will be cut to the soup bone.

330 billion from education and the work force. Seniors and veterans may not get the checks they earned from work and sacrifice in a timely fashion.

But the Dept. of Education cuts disturb me the most. If you own property or a business, have children in school or not, we all pay property and school taxes which will go up. And school tax can go up a lot. We may be nickeled and dimed to death. A nickel tax here, a dime tax there.

And that also means businesses, electric, water and gas companies will pass their extra tax bills on to you.

What will happen when schools have to choose between school sports programs and book learning?

What happens when it is food and water over electricity and medicine?

Money is now being cut from food pantries.

It is the honest to God truth what an honorable, well respected member of the Middlesboro community shared with me this week about an experience she had with a prescription she was given by her doctor for foot cream.

The cream was $66.00 and she could not afford it so she asked her doc to give her a cheaper script. It was not approved by the insurance so she was forced to get the original cream. Within the week the $66.00 foot cream had jumped (in my opinion goosed) to $1,000.00.

I hate to say it but I’m thinking the American people have been slipshucked and will pay through the nose for it.

Angela Jackson

Middlesboro