Editor:

This is a short rebuttal to the letter written by Nick Mandis in the Casper Star-Tribune on Aug. 24th. Mr. Mandis states that the Bush tax cuts helped me receive a rather large increase in my income and that the reduced tax cuts were because of the Bush tax cuts. Two things for Mr. Mandis:

First, Bush had absolutely nothing to do with my increased income. It was generated by the collective bargaining process between my union and the company I work for. I am sure that Bush would be shocked to learn that he may have given a union man a pay raise since he is so anti-labor.

Second, if he would bother to look, Mr. Mandis would find that the national debt today stands at $9,650,000,000,000 (that's trillion). When Bush took office the national debt stood at about $5.7 trillion. It is projected that the debt will be at $10 trillion when Bush finally leaves office, that is an increase of more than $4 trillion.

Mr. Mandis thinks I should be grateful and not complain about the couple of dollars I get from a tax cut. Well, I am not grateful but ashamed that we as Americans would rather have a few more dollars now and have our grandchildren inherit this huge debt, but that is the Republican way.

In the short time it took me to write this letter the national debt will have increased by $10 million, so enjoy your tax cut and have a nice day.

RICH JAMES, Rawlins