Letters to the editor June 19

Budget bill

The Republican budget bill will reduce health care and food assistance for working Americans by over $1 trillion so that billionaires can receive a permanent tax cut worth trillions of dollars. 

The bill will explode our national debt by trillions of dollars, dramatically increasing interest payments each year. This is not sustainable and is totally unnecessary. 

We need to require the rich to pay their fair share by increasing their taxes. This would allow us to provide health care and food assistance to those in need, adequate support for our rural hospitals, sustainable management of our national debt, reduction of our current historic disparity of wealth and provide a strong economy. 

This is what our senators and representatives should be advocating instead of voting for a bill that does so much harm just to benefit their rich donors and aid their re-election.

— Ron de Yong, Kalispell

Dairy tour

I was able to take the senior center van trip to tour the Kalispell Creamery. It is family owned and operated, and began in 1978. I had never been to their dairy and processing of milk products. It was fascinating to see how the cows are milked, and especially the bottling process. 

One has to tour this wonderful dairy and just witness the ingenuity that has gone into the workings of the dairy. Flathead County is forunate to have this dairy and the senior center van.

— Grace Larson, Kalispell

Flag Day march

It’s Flag Day. I will march from the Flathead County Courthouse to Depot Park in Kalispell, along with hundreds of other citizens who are appalled at the relentless attacks upon democracy and our Constitution by the most vain, vulgar and vindictive president in American history and his tyrannical minions.

I will carry the American flag, which slowly but surely is being reclaimed from those who would fly it to show their patriotism to Donald Trump. The flag does not belong to a president. It does not belong to any political party. It belongs to we the people of the United States of America.

I expect to be among the oldest of the marchers at this event in the Flathead and others across the nation that are being organized and lead by young people. Their engagement and passion is a sign of hope.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, and potentially other cities around the country, U.S. Marines and the National Guard are being ordered to present themselves as a fearsome barrier to free speech and peaceful protest. 

The “Marines’ Hymn” is a lofty, patriot song. With no disrespect to the honor and sacrifice — past, present and future — of the Corp and its veterans, Trump is desecrating the history of the service and its patriotic hymn, which includes the moving verse “First to fight for right and freedom, And to keep our honor clean.”

(As sung to the “Marines’ Hymn”)

From the office of the president 

To the streets of East LA.

We will silence any protesting 

There is nothing you can say. 

Disregard the Constitution 

And our sacred right to speak.

We have crossed the line to monarchy (with the) 

The United States Marines.

— Roger Hopkins, Columbia Falls