What is Wilson’s pen made of?

Is it true that Marlena Wilson writes with a pen made of estrogen?

Bryan Maxwell

junior, civil engineering

What about the bailout?

Thursday, Paul McCauley said that when President Barack Obama got to office, ‘the economy was ignored.’ What about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the $787 billion bailout that Obama triumphantly signed in to law?

Benjamin Berry

junior, computer science

Editor’s Note: The word limit on the following letter has been waived.

Frugality and maturity go hand-in-hand

This is written in response to a recent Associated Press article entitled ‘Frugal Duke grad student living in a van on campus.’ To reduce the national debt, politicians and bureaucrats need to follow his example and drastically cut spending on new projects and programs, and closely monitor costs and expenses of the existing government bureaucracies. Based on results in recent statewide elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, most voters would agree that government spending and regulation should be drastically reduced, immediately.

It was a smart decision by Mr. [Ken] Ilgunas to eliminate his $32,000 debt as quickly as possible. However, it would have been a better decision if he had delayed his college education until he could afford it with a minimum amount of debt. Most people who still have education debt would agree. Obviously he felt the heaviness of his debt and wisely took steps to eliminate it. When you are in the negative like Mr. Ilgunas was, you have to closely track your expenses, eat rice, beans and powdered milk. He probably does not have cable or satellite TV. He used the resources he had paid for: his van and the facilities at the campus gym. Apparently he’s healthy, so I bet he decided he could save money and not purchase health insurance while it’s still not a federal mandate. He is wise to avoid new expenses assuming he lives a celibate life during his times of limited means. All people who are financially challenged would be wise to become virgins and not allow themselves to become burdens on society.

Locally, statewide and nationally, politicians and government bureaucrats must eliminate, reduce or delay spending of money confiscated from taxpayers on new projects and programs to avoid taking on new debt. One project that comes to mind is the $8.3 million in federal funds to extend Daniel Street in Tarboro to US 258 north. The ‘Race to the Top’ initiative promoted by the governor is taking $470 million from federal taxpayers. Your taxpayer dollars are being spent to force tobacco companies to provide the FDA with information to study cigarette ingredients, even though we’ve known for many years that smoking is bad for you. The Town of Wilson plans to spend millions of dollars taken from taxpayers to renovate its downtown. Edgecombe County plans to take federal taxpayer money to renovate the six-story ‘Ivory Tower’ it recently purchased from Embarq. Taxpayers are footing the bill for scientists and engineers to discuss sea level rise along the N.C. coast, even though we know now that the political left manipulated climate data and computer models to promote their global warming agenda. The Democrats want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to continuously create massive bureaucracies that they call health care reform. The spending list never ends.

It’s time for the people of this country demand that the elected politicians spend money more wisely on projects and programs that we really need, not just on things that might be nice to have or to buy votes. You do this by voting for the opponents of big spending politicians who spend taxpayer money so liberally.

It’s also time for Mr. Ilgunas at 26 to grow up and use his resourcefulness to enter the business world instead of being a professional student. He seems to be a survivor and would probably do well. He has the intelligence to be successful or he would not be at Duke. Then his mama can stop worrying about him living in his van.

Leon Wilson

alumnus, class of 1977