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Elected officials must recognize that slashing discretionary spending doesn't treat our fiscal disease. Our elected officials should tell the American people the truth about our fiscal condition and its causes.

As of today, 64 percent of our federal budget is mandatory spending, rather than expenditures voted upon by Congress. It is projected to be 76 percent by 2023, just 10 years from now. The Republicans want to cut, the Dems want more taxes. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I would like to personally thank our legislators for sitting on their fat behinds and letting the gas stations in West Virginia bankrupt everyone who has to drive to work every day by letting them raise their prices out of sight for no reason except pure greed.

Please, let's get rid of Pete Thaw! Haven't we had enough of his nonsense? God save the libraries!

After same-sex marriage becomes legal, what's next? Allowing people to marry their beloved pets?

If you want to see government waste at its best, look no further than the lighted street signs here in Charleston. Yes, that is right, lighted street signs. Pure waste. What was wrong with normal street signs? Think of the additional initial costs, light repairs and electricity.

What is that bonehead at Dutch Miller trying to do, scare people into buying cars? He has about as much insight on gas prices as I do.

The 47 percent that conservatives scream about didn't re-elect President Obama. Fifty-one percent of intelligent Americans did. Deal with it, losers.

The Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote than to own a gun. Along with the NRA, they are fighting background checks because they say that it penalizes law-abiding citizens, but if you're a law-abiding citizen, you don't care if they run a check on you.

I am so saddened and angered that the West Virginia Book Festival has been canceled. West Virginia has enough going against her. Now we are again taking a little more culture out of the lives of our citizens by canceling an event that is free to the public and opens up the world to many.

Until we fundamentally reform our tax code in a way that brings in more revenue, address demographic trends and rein in health-care costs, we can't claim to have achieved deficit reduction in an honest and meaningful way.

Would someone please tell me just how many stores in the city of Charleston the gun-ordinance bills in the Legislature would affect?

Books and authors bring other experiences and lives and ideas to readers. Why are libraries and the Book Festival on the chopping block? Every community needs a library. And West Virginia needs the Book Festival. I was able to meet my favorite author through this event. So sad others won't have that opportunity.

Would the brainiac Obamazombies who keep posting that the deficit has suddenly been reduced explain to the rest of us how a few days of trading on Wall Street did it? You tell us to quit listening to Fox. Maybe they should reduce their MSNBC intake.

Someone wrote in to use drug testing of gun permit holders to weed out dangerous criminals. Please read the newspaper and notice that robberies and murders are not committed by permit holders, who pay the sheriff's office to permit them.

For the individual who wants to get rid of Pete Thaw, we supporters will never do that because of his stance on the library, along with all his other stances. If you get rid of Pete Thaw, your taxes will be so high you won't have money to drive your car to the library.

Explanation for so many anti-Obama comments: sore-losing Republicans, party of the "no," whining and sifting through granules to find anything possible to complain about. Suck it up, losers! Stop your crying and complaining, you are just making yourselves look even more ridiculous.

The person asking if taxpayers or Obamacare have to pay when a thug gets shot and goes to the hospital has a valid question. However, the answer is the same. With either, the taxpayer is footing the bill for the thug. Because you know they don't have a job!

We just learned that the Republicans have a new motto: "Hope for change."

The only thing our House of Representatives and our Senate have in common is that they comprise the Congress. What they do not have is a sense of responsibility to this country and its citizens and, as important, to themselves.