You really have to get a kick out of how the Republican Party is pushing John Kerry to say he will not raise taxes to fund his proposals.

What really gives me a kick is the phrase, “read my lips, no new taxes” spoken to the American people six months before George H.W. Bush’s election and then followed by the biggest tax increase in American history.

When President Bush got elected (and I voted for him), I got a $300 IRS check in the mail and thought sure I had voted for the right man.

In the past four years, that $300 has cost me over $5,000 in increased prices for gasoline, heating oil, food, property taxes, home and health insurance and prescription drugs.

And the biggest kick is that we are in a war, very much like the Vietnam War I fought in, with no end in sight, our tax dollars robbed to support the never ending killing of our beloved sons and daughters and depriving Americans from the help and relief they really need now.

Please, Maine, give John Kerry a shot at leading our great country. He certainly could not do worse for our nation than Bush has done. Let’s hope and pray he will do better to protect us, guide us, inspire us and give us back the confidence and government we need to move us forward and not let our kids pay for this administration’s folly.

Al Pelletier, Norway