To the Editor:

We have just completed another celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Humming in the background of the celebration are individuals who would have us return to a government much like the one we declared our independence from in 1776.

The Declaration of Independence was signed declaring our independence from the repressive government of Great Britain. Great Britain was not only repressive but they were extracting taxes without representation and expecting more and more taxes from the colonies.

Today we have a much similar situation. Eventho we claim to have representation. But do we really have representation? Are those that we elected to office really representing the people who elected them to office?

From my point of view is “they are not!” Those we have elected appear to be spending their time enriching themselves at the expense of those who elected them. They are passing bills loaded with pork barrel projects; projects that will enrich them but will do little for those who have elected them.

Our current elected individuals have opportunities to help the people who elected them to office by repealing some disastrous legislation loaded with taxes and taxation that have been enacted: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” At the same time that can be repealing the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” Then go back a few years and repeal the “Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act).”

Once they have repealed these acts there will need to be some laws that will help to protect all the people of this nation. Laws are for everyone not for a selected few. Laws that control and reduce the taxation on the citizenry or we can again wind up with another declaration. Nowhere in our Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States does it say that we must be taxed so that a few can do little for their efforts of this country and still be rewarded.

The Declaration of Independence declares: “……that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,……..”

We as a people must remind our elected officials that they are there for us! They should be guided by our Constitution and not their own greed! We must challenge our elected officials to remember “that all able bodied men only have one thing that they must do, everything else they do by choice. Whatever they do other than return to their maker is done by choice. Because they have chosen to be elected by the people they have chosen to limit their choices as to what is best for the people rather than themselves!!

Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount