The price of gas is pretty high. I hear lots of chatter about oil companies taking excessive profits. Hillary wants them to pay a windfall profit tax. What nonsense.

The more our government butts into the free enterprise system, the worse it gets. Companies make about 8 percent on each gallon of gas they sell. When the price goes up, so do the dollars of profit. The government makes about 60 percent on every gallon that is sold.

How can we put a windfall profit tax on taxes? Should we also give tax rebates when companies have losses? Where does it end?

Let's move to the FairTax and eliminate the high government profits and power over our money. Why aren't we talking about drilling in Anwar or North Dakota to relieve our dependence on Middle East oil?

Reading and/or listening to media reports for the last six months, you would believe we have been in a recession. Some of the reports even talked about a depression. The more they talk, the more we think it's true.

The fact is, however, that a recession is defined by two quarters of negative growth. The last quarter's growth was just reported to be less than one percent. We're still not in a recession, no matter how hard they try to make it happen. The real blame for government spending and the economy, by the way, lies with Congress and the Democrats.

The housing starts and mortgage failures have contributed to our "poor" economy. The other report that just came out makes that statement a bit inaccurate, too. The mortgage foreclosure rate is something like one in every 194. That is less than one-half of one percent. Does that sound like it is above average?

Polk Dillon

Pinehurst