Remember when our towns and cities didn’t look like ghost towns, and the mills were filled with full-time jobs? That all ended with a so-called free trade bill.

When our mills were empty, the jobs gone overseas, and we found out it wasn’t fair on their part, did we see the job loss stopped?

The reason was, whether it worked or not, we were there for the cheap labor and high profits — the motive to begin with.

Now, the thousands of people here who are out of work are sprinkled across a nation of part-time work.

When you are laid off from a job, they put you in school for two years, only to graduate into the same part-time work, but you are out of the way for a while.

To make matters worse, the politicians look at you as the country’s problem because you are getting something for nothing (unemployment benefits or whatever else you can get to survive).

China is a threat to us today. Why? Because it has our jobs.

I say it is time for the government to put some of the stimulus money where it will really help and get the jobs back here. Stop telling us it can’t or never will happen, and empty the unemployment in this country.

Maybe then people will be able to shop at places other than the discount or dollar stores.

Glenn Gagne, Lewiston