Vox Pop

Vox Pop, voice of the people, publishes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Submissions are limited to 100 words. To call in a comment, dial 829-2900 or 1-800-547-2909 then enter code 8008. To e-mail a comment, write to voxpop@brainerddispatch.com. Comments, which must meet the newspaper's standards of fairness and good taste, may be edited for clarity, length and libel.

Hire only one

When hiring at the mill, let's see one person per household rather than spouses being hired. There are families that need the income rather than married couples getting hired and double income from the mill. ...

Questions about Wal-Mart

If Wal-Mart is such a great corporation, and their superstore is so wonderful, why do they avoid all public discussion of their plans and policies? ... In response to "It's called progress," a superstore that can come into a community and wipe out the competition is not progress. Progress is having a number of stores in a community that can successfully compete with one another on a relatively level playing field. ...

Dear Baxter,

Is the only thing you can possibly think of is to add another sales tax on our sales tax? It just amazes me that politicians have only one possible option to deal with anything -- raise a tax. And if you don't like the big Wal-Mart superstore that may arrive there, don't shop there. Let the people have the choice instead of politicians who want to raise taxes and use them to limit competition.

Free country

There's a lot of hullabaloo about Wal-Mart putting in a superstore. This is a free country as free enterprise system in which it is all built on. There's a lot of stores that are closed downtown Brainerd and Wal-Mart had no effect whatsoever on their closings. If the city of Brainerd does not have what I want, I'll go to St. Cloud or elsewhere. ...

Is anyone awake?

Imagine if a gas station, on the first of the month, buys 100,000 gallons of gas at $1.35 a gallon. Two days into that month, they raise their gas to $1.65 a gallon. Look at the amount of money this company is making off of that gas. Don't you think that the gasoline should only be sold, if he still has 90,000 gallons left in that tank for the month, that he should continue to pay the price of $1.35 a gallon to the consumers? Is anyone awake out there? What are they doing?