To the Editor:

I want to thank the League of Women Voters in Franklin for holding candidate forums for our community.  On Aug. 12, the candidates for the North Carolina House and Senate running in the November election were invited to speak. These forums give voters a chance to hear candidates answer questions about what they hope to accomplish and their vision for the future, and for this opportunity I am truly grateful. It was disappointing, however,  to see only one Republican choose to attend the forum while the other two (Roger West and Jim Davis) failed to show up. A candidate that is too busy (or some other excuse) to meet with the voters and discuss the issues is not someone I want to represent us in the North Carolina legislature.

I also want to comment on a letter to the editor I read last week from someone who attended the forum. The only “solution” she heard from one candidate was to blame Bush for the economic crisis. It is not blaming.  Rather it is reminding people of the Bush economic policies that drove us into this Great Recession: Bush came into office with a huge surplus of $230 billion —  the biggest surplus in generations — and squandered it with reckless tax cuts for the very wealthy while at the same time fighting two wars. We’ve had these tax cuts for the wealthy for eight years, and they’re not working. Where are the jobs that are suppose to “trickle down” to the rest of us?  

Now the Republicans want to keep the huge tax cuts for the top 2 percent — the multimillionaires and billionaires — while the bottom 98 percent of Americans pay for it by raising the Social Security retirement age to 70.

In addition to some disparaging remarks this woman made about some of the candidates, she used the word “elitist” to describe them. I would have to ask her what policy could be more “elitist” than giving huge tax cuts to the mega wealthy — the elite of our country — and making the middle class pay for it.  Nice try, lady, but voters are smarter than that.  

Cindy Solesbee

Franklin