Dear Editor,

The “Big companies need oversight” article typifies the very mind set contributing to the demise of our country. Government has done such an outstanding job in taking over the housing, banking, health care and auto industries.

Can you honestly name anything, aside from the military, that our federal government does well? They have the propensity to screw up everything they touch!

Government, the environmentalists, and our party-going inspectors are the primary contributors to the BP disaster. Everything was “cool” as long as the money flowed to our illustrious public servants.

If our benevolent leaders, and I use that term loosely, would have allowed shallow drilling or the novel concept of land drilling, this would not have occurred or at the very least, a spill that could have been stopped and contained. I’m sorry, I digress. Government knows best. Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house!

Does BP have any responsibility? Absolutely! BP made a plethora of mistakes, but to simply cite greed and corruption, one only needs to look towards Washington.

Government only takes, they produce no wealth. Without the so-called windfall profits, where would the money come from for future oil exploration, let alone clean up costs and compensation payments?

Mrs. Barrett would do well to go visit Jeter and read about the greatest peace time expansion in our history under Ronald Reagan. On second thought, the revisionists have probably rewritten that section already.

Are we better off now or under Reagan? That’s a no-brainer! It is obvious where we need real oversight and that is in our higher institutions of learning.