Latta offers no positive measures

If all goes well in this year's elections, U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) will not be re-elected. He personifies what's wrong in the United States.

His May 11 op-ed diatribe in The Blade, "Expect buyer's remorse from health-care 'reform,'•" is little more than kissing up to keep party campaign money coming. His message, per the party line, offers no positive suggestions. He criticizes without offering to work together to solve some of the most severe problems our country has faced in recent years.

Mr. Latta talks of the nation's debt but does not mention that $10 trillion was incurred by his party. Nor does he mention the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the undoing of international relations, the undermining of environmental policies, or the mindlessness of bringing prisoners to this hemisphere at Guantanamo.

He does not mention that his party had eight years to make government smaller, that it did not respond quickly to the banking crisis, or that President Bush tried to hijack Social Security.

I voted Republican in every presidential election since 1960. In 2008 I voted for President Obama, because of the miserable job done by the Bush administration. Mr. Latta wants to go back to this time of lies, deceit, trickery, and the undermining of our values and the middle class.

Mr. Obama did not create the deficit. His deficit spending has been done here in the United States. The problems he faces should have been dealt with by honest men long before his election. I am not a Democrat. I am struggling to remain a Republican because of a number of nasty people. I do not want amateurs running this country.

Ned Braunschweiger

Maumee

Representative Latta neglected to mention the "death panels" created by the legislation. Has this talking point been so thoroughly debunked that it strains credibility?

Mr. Latta has time and again proved himself adept and consistent in representing a rigid conservative ideology. I suggest he seek common ground and compromise where necessary in the interest of more honest, broad representation.

Slinging talking points and using "Chicken Little" tactics may be effective on the campaign trail, talk radio, or cable news, but right now your constituents need a more courageous, pragmatic legislator.

Randy Pozniak

Perrysburg

Your May 10 editorial "Greece's Trojan horse" talked about a country that is spending more than it earns and is accumulating a huge national debt. It went on to say that public-sector employees are wildly overpaid and have pensions that would be the envy of unionized workers.

Were it not for the headline identifying the country as Greece, a reader might think the editorial was talking about the United States.

However, there is a significant difference. The editorial specifically talks about how the bribery of public officials in Greece is common and expected. In the United States, we choose instead to call influencing our elected officials lobbying and making campaign contributions, and have approved this activity by law and had it blessed by the courts.

A rose by any other name.

Don Decker

Holland

In Greece right now, which is worth more, the euro or a gyro? Opa!

Steven J. Athanas

Georgetown Avenue

The solution to illegal immigration should be to let each state exercise sovereignty over its borders as necessary to protect its citizens. Federal laws should only assist state laws at borders between the United States and foreign countries if necessary.

The Constitution requires the federal government to protect the United States and its borders from foreign attacks. There should not be any conflict between state and federal responsibilities if both were properly defined.

J. Murray Stewart

Shoreland Drive

On at least three occasions, U.S. presidents ordered massive deportations of illegal aliens to provide employment opportunities for our returning soldiers. It worked every time. It will work again.

William Poznanski

Melvin Drive

My wife and I were in Toledo on May 8, traveling on rough city roads. I could not believe the bad condition of Central Avenue, Upton Avenue, and Monroe Street.

The gasoline tax takes care of the roads in Fulton County. What is the source of funds for Toledo streets? Or do the city engineers have their hands tied for improvements?

In Florida, road crews repave streets between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Toledo should consider this idea.

Al Kreuz

Delta, Ohio

Blade Editor David Kushma asked why voter turnout was so low in the recent primary election ("Primary had winners, losers, no-shows," op-ed column, May 9).

In Fulton County, our voter turnout, not counting provisional ballots, was 18.69 percent. This is better than Lucas County, but still poor by our standards.

Voters tell me they do not want to name their party in front of neighbors. Actually, a voter can circle affiliation on a list of party names on the sign-in sheet and get the corresponding ballot. Most people either don't know this or the poll workers simply ask them when they approach the table.

If these party indications were more prominently displayed, and the poll worker simply asked the voter to circle the ballot type he or she wanted, this would avoid having to identify a party out loud.

John F. Weber

Swanton

In response to a letter to the editor about The Blade's coverage of and my response to a recent dog bite, I would like to assure the writer that I took the incident seriously ("Negative story on 'pit bull' buried", May 11).

I spoke to the victim's grandmother, the victim's mother, and the victim. All agreed that to prevent these types of incidents in the future, we must enact tougher penalties against neglectful and irresponsible dog owners, rather than indiscriminately kill a breed of dog regardless of its temperament - the policy of the previous dog warden.

The 11-year-old victim was on the mark when she said: "People should take care of their dogs and not train them to hurt people who are innocent."

I agree. I'm working with our dog warden advisory committee, City Council, and the new dog warden to enact a tough, comprehensive, and logical approach to cracking down on deadbeat dog owners, thus reducing bites from all breeds of dogs.

Ben Konop

Lucas County Commissioner

As a homeowner, I would benefit by the proposal to drop a property tax in favor of a sales tax to fund TARTA (Lucas County seeks TARTA funding shift," May 12).

But I have a novel idea: How about charging the users of the service the full price? I am tired of subsidizing every little thing that doesn't affect me.

Rodger Kokensparger

Kinder Road