Inept officials cannot solve our problems

5/23/2006

The problem with our government's inability to solve the illegal immigration problem is that it is too busy sticking its nose into everything, so it cannot do a good job on anything. Remember, those who go to Washington to "represent" us are rank amateurs and don't know any more than we do about anything, except they are better connected.

After they get there they become corrupt, not in the legal sense, but in the moral sense of compromising principle to achieve short-term victories, with many times disastrous long-term results.

We see it ever day in the way government spends, spends, spends our money and when it spends all the money we involuntarily provide, it spends more by borrowing from the very countries that beat our brains out in the international marketplace.

It's common knowledge that a great deal of the money available for home loans is coming from the Middle East; money we've paid them for their oil and they are lending back to us in the form of bonds they buy that support the home-loan program.

Further, does anyone find it strange that government created farm supports that artificially keep prices higher than they otherwise would be and then turns around and provides food stamps and other support programs for folks who cannot afford the inflated prices?

Does anyone actually believe the Medicare drug program will not lead to higher drug prices? No matter how you structure a giveaway or support program, increased demand always raises prices; mine already have.

We would be much safer if we changed the Constitution to require legislators to legislate only a couple of months a year and then go home. Just think of the hot air we would save.

JAMES BEDEE

Westbourne Road

A May 13 letter analyzing President Bush's pursuit of war in Iraq requires a reply.

Will the letter writer please explain the reasons for Mr. Bush's rule by secrecy, his lies, his duplicity, his deficits, his actions in giving away our country to his high donors while sustaining hardships on the lower and middle classes of our nation, his attacks on our civil liberties, and his assaults on our Constitution, which has stood us in good stead for over 200 years and which was written by men far wiser than he?

Adele Federman

Mockingbird Lane

George W. Bush should change his name to Sam Walton. Both men have made it impossible for the average American-born citizen to seek and earn a fair living wage within this country.

Mr. Bush's plan for temporary workers status to supposedly help with our economy is bologna. It will only hurt the American people, hitting them hard in their pockets by denying them a fair wage while allowing foreigners to come work in our great country only for a fourth of what an American citizen and worker would require to survive and support a family.

President Bush should be proud of his so-called support for and at the same time ruining the institution known as the American family and the working wage.

Jolene M. Morgenstern

Lehman Avenue

The other morning we woke to find the telephone wire leading from the telephone pole to our house hanging low. It was not touching the ground but it was blocking the door leading to the outside.

There were umpteen phone numbers listed in the phone book to call AT&T but no emergency number, so we started down the list.

Some 95 minutes later, we had talked to several machines, several people who didn't know what to tell us, one person who asked what state we were calling from, and one person who tried to talk us into switching from Buckeye Express to AT&T cable.

Finally we were given a number that was supposedly the only number we could call for help. Since we had already called that number several times, we gave up.

We now use the front door to get to the backyard.

EVELYN KUHL

Carver Boulevard

For many years I was a diehard Democrat and a UAW officer in a General Motors plant, but I no longer have much in common with the far left-wing radicals who have taken over the party. The party's allegiance to radical groups like Moveon.org, the ACLU, the trial lawyers, George Soros, Michael Moore, and left-wing nut Howard Dean makes me sick when I hear their anti-American garbage.

This is the party that has been so concerned about our treatment of terrorist war prisoners, yet they say little about those monsters who capture and behead Americans and other captives.

This is the party that screamed we should pull out of Iraq but when the Republican Party forced that issue, they did not have the guts to vote to support their political babble and the issue only received three votes.

This is the party that constantly finds fault with our President's handling of the war, but if one looks back at John Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which left the Communists in control or Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War, which allowed the Communists to control North Korea, or Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War, where we lost 58,000 troops and did not win, I do not think that they have too much expertise to offer.

Then there was Bill Clinton, who proved his expertise by getting a bunch of our Army rangers killed in Mogadishu and then ordering a retreat with nothing gained. Then he demonstrated more of his expertise at Ruby Ridge and Waco, where his administration killed almost 100 Americans over gun control issues, many of those women and children.

Which is the bigger threat, the terrorists or the liberals who control the Democrat Party?

GEORGE E. SAILER

Temperance

The victim of a sexual predator can suffer the trauma for years, while the offender gets room and board, dental and medical attention, and costs the public about $47 or more per day. After completing his sentence, he may terrorize the public again.

A number of years ago, a young American man in Singapore was caught spraying paint on the cars in the streets. His punishment was 30 strokes in a flogging.

Would such a penalty help reduce crimes of these predators?

LEO KESSMAR

Northwood

I read with dismay that Smoke Free Ohio has had many of its signatures invalidated. I am opposed to smoking in public places, having lost many dear to me from cancer caused by either smoking or secondhand smoke.

I truly hope this law passes, but am concerned about how it will be enforced. I had hoped to attend a concert at the Sports Arena but was informed that they cannot control the smoking at such events, even though signs are posted.

I also posed the same question to the fire department, which basically said the same thing. Both admitted it was illegal but seemed powerless to do anything about it.

Smoking kills. Each cigarette is a nail in your coffin. Please be considerate and think of those exposed to your "poison."

IRIS MAXWELL

Laurel Avenue

I oppose the use of the National Guard to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. The Guard can be of better use at other problem points, such as when Katrina hit. They could have been used there, saving lives instead of being sent to Iraq, which I was opposed to from the beginning.

You can forget about Mexico's President Fox doing anything to stop the influx into our country of these people. With Mexico's economy in the shape it's in, he's probably glad to see them go.

BILL MASSIE

Put-In-Bay, Ohio