The cost of our last presidential election was $6 billion, plus or minus. An election for a vacant House seat (with a 16-month term), went for $30 million. Those amounts seem excessive for free elections. We now have a president and government of the corporations. We voted them in because we were frustrated with an inept and corrupt Congress.

We didn't realize the president represented that same group that has been constantly lobbying Congress, paying perks, running misleading infomercials, and getting enormous donations as a result of the "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling.

This same group that pollutes our Earth, forecloses on our homes, uses the mob and terrorists to protect their interests, launders money, pays slave labor wages, pays little or no taxes and supports tactics that suppress our vote. Corporations are not instituted for people's well-being. The health-care debacle demonstrated that.

Being real people, we have to vote for real-people agendas. Though in most elections our choices are still limited, there are usually more than two candidates in key spots. Our government was established for the needs of real people, not "corporations are people." Stop this developing dictatorship.

Robert Lyons

Ledyard