YourNeighborhoodNews.com: The Goffstown News

We're a mobile society. And in a mobile society, people have cars. And people who have cars need a place to park them. Unfortunately, parking is limited, so not everyone can get a nice, close place to where they need to be.

Such is the case at Goffstown High School. About half the students there have driver's licenses, and many want or need to drive to school. But of course, there aren't enough spaces in the school lot. And finally, the selectmen have passed an ordinance on recommendation of the safety committee to ban parking within a half mile of the school. Safety issues and neighbor complaints have brought the issue to a head.

So, no more parking along Wallace Road.

Now what?

After the first bit of grumbling, alternatives will be found, we're sure. Students will get dropped off by parents, a few will begin riding the bus, carpooling may increase. They'll get used to it.

The fact is that schools are not obligated, nor can they afford, to provide parking for every student who wants to bring their car to school. In this case, safety overrides the desire, and yes, even the need for teens to bring a car to school.
-Christine Heiser

You list options that have been tried in the past, and you ask "But what hasn't been tried yet?"

Placing stop signs to stop the traffic on Shirley Hill Road will eliminate the problem of drivers on Wallace Road not being able to see up or down Shirley Hill Road, as they will bring all traffic safely to a stop. And won't stop signs save money over the expense of traffic signals, as well as save lives?

Since beginning her school tours in 1996, Judy had produced four popular collections of her songs. Her innovative songwriting won her the Children's Music Web Best Song for Young Children award three times in 1999 for her song "Swimming in Jell-O," again in 2000 for "The Potty Dance" and then again in 2004 for "One Big Eyeball." Also, her 1998 recording, "Candy," won her a Parent's Choice Award.

Thank you Judy for providing quality entertainment for our children and for helping us raise money for our community's youth!

To learn more about the Goffstown Mother's Club, please contact our 2005-06 Membership Secretary Deb Luppi at 497-5111.

Back then attaining the "ripe old age" of 65 was a major milestone in anyone's life. Most did not make it for various reasons that modern medicine has corrected. A lot of the rest was fixed by workplace and product safety as well as an increase in public safety.

And even if you did you were not expected to last more than a handful of years thereafter. In short, people today are living a lot longer and just about 100 percent of us will reach 65. That means a lot more people collecting Social Security than the system was designed for.

The second reason goes back into the '50s, '60s, and '70s when the bulk of us "Baby Boomers" were all earning paychecks and dropping a whole lot of dollars into the Social Security "trust fund," more than it was paying out by a small landslide. Now one thing that should never be allowed to happen is to have a pile of money just sitting around Washington.

Those darned Congressmen, I won't blame the ladies on this as there weren't any that I can remember, will find some darned reason to spend it.

And that they did. Congress "borrowed" money from Social Security to fund the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, and a whole lot of other unrelated stuff.

I do believe that even George Bush's current budget depends on a sum of money coming out of Social Security to fund his war in Iraq.

So, how do we fix this situation? Well for one, I don't think the idea of "individual accounts" is a very good one. Having an individual account infers ownership of what's in that account, meaning that I can leave it to one of my heirs when I die, or that a creditor can tap that account when I default on a debt. That sure isn't going to help matters.

Additionally after the last few years of the stock market's actions, I don't think the vast majority of us is smart enough to do the investing. Take a look at the Enron scandal. They conned lots of people who do investing for a living.

If those people can dupe the professionals, what chance do we normal people have of not losing our retirement nest eggs? No, I don't like individual accounts, but then I don't like that money sitting idle in Washington either.

So why not let the pros do the investing for us, on the same scale as CALPERS, the California retirement system does.

That way it's out of the reach of Congress and the White House, and adding to the available funds as well. Second, we Baby Boomers are now nearing retirement age, but what says we have to retire? Nothing, that's what.

So why does Social Security start paying out benefits when one reaches that "golden" age? It's the one government entitlement system that one does not have to do anything to start receiving benefits. Stop it! Set a minimum retirement age and make people apply for the benefits. That should reduce the number of folks drawing funds out and possibly keep them on the donating side instead.

Also put a premium on delaying that start of benefits. Say by adding 1 percent or so to the benefit, you would have received for every year that you delay it. They do something like that today, just extend it.

And last, right now those of us who are "highly compensated" stop paying Social Security taxes after we.ve earned $90,000 for the year. Why?

Why not eliminate the cap all together and increase the amount of dollars being put into the fund, without increasing the tax rate.

Must be that this makes sense because you sure don't hear any of it coming out of Washington.