I don’t disagree with all of the earmarks that Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins went for, but I do not understand some of them. For example, how does the Acadia National Park land acquisition provide jobs? How does collaboration between the University of Maine and Maine Maritime Academy get tidal power going in the Gulf of Maine (that subject has been studied for years)? How does a trail along Park Avenue in Auburn create permanent jobs? And why do we need another study regarding employment of refugees when the area cannot employ all the people who have already lost their jobs?

In good times, those are all worthy projects. But, first we need to engineer the return of good times.

Why not put to good use those resources that will bring the good times back?

There needs to be a way to get money flowing, and that is where the concentration of the money being borrowed from our grandchildren should go. Certainly not on spending that is designed to get current representatives in the Senate and House re-elected, which is what all the legislative pork is for, anyway.

Jack Tetreault, Lewiston