I asked if she knew what corporate officers get, noting that the current Republicans in Congress and the N.C. General Assembly give many millions to the already obscenely rich in the form of tax breaks. Why? Because of campaign donations to those legislators. Most of the tax breaks flying out of that revolving door into well- tailored pockets go to CEOs and their upper staff in salaries and bonuses. 

Workers have not gotten anything close to the same percent raise. 

This happens even in corporations saying they “can’t afford” to pay current workers, so they close plants. Example: GM just “laid off” 15,000 men and women, likely forever if the current president and his enablers in the Senate keep control, yet GM just paid its CEO $25 million.

Duke Energy is giving CEO Lynn J. Good nearly $14 million this year. Recall, dear readers, that Duke “can’t afford” to clean up its coal ash ponds and put the cancer-causing sludge in lined containers. So CEO Lynn gets $14 million for leading a company that courts have proven knew it was poisoning people.  

Somebody please explain to me why slow mass murder goes unpunished. My Christian Church Sunday School teacher didn’t teach us any lessons on that. Miss Betty was a farmer, mother and wife like many women in our small rural farm community. We were naive, I guess, actually believing Jesus’ teachings. 

CEO pay has risen way out of proportion to corporate profits and way, way more than employees’ income. So those CEOs get rewards not for improving their companies but just because they could. 

What do we call getting something for nothing? Corrupted “welfare,” or what my friend mis-labels as “socialism.” 

Look up the real definition in any good encyclopedia. America isn’t nor will it be purely socialist no matter who is elected. But I hope we will enforce true “socialist” (good for society) laws that protect individuals from hugely powerful, ruthless corporations and others whose power is far out of proportion to the power of us individuals and families, who are ground under the wheels of their Bentleys and Jaguars.

Mary Jane Curry

Haywood County