Ignorant Americans have forgotten their origins
Re: "Read the bills? How about reading the Constitution?" Oct. 27
I really like this Gene Healy guy. Seriously!
First, he writes a brilliant piece charging the average American with responsibility for the country's present economic mess ("
Voters are the cause of America's fiscal mess," June 2).
Then on Tuesday, he writes another fine column saying that members of Congress should first read the U.S. Constitution before voting on any piece of legislation - which, by the way, they should also read in context of the Constitution's requirements.
The problem is that we the people do not demand that our members of Congress be familiar with the Constitution because, in our own ignorance, we have chosen to turn our backs upon the great heritage bequeathed to us by our nation's founders.
Who, me?
Lawrence K. Marsh
Gaithersburg
Obama's foreign policy: appeasement & apology
President Obama's conduct of our nation's foreign policy continues to make our country weaker. His most recent blunder was canceling the missile defense shield. With Iran aggressively developing long- range ballistic missiles as well as pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, this bad policy move puts some of our longtime allies in Europe at a much greater risk.
He will not listen to the ground commanders and continues to stall on General McChrystal's request to send more troops to Afghanistan as he continues to appease our enemies.
The president's continued apologizing for the United States surrenders our superpower status and will eventually become dangerous to our overall security. He has contributed absolutely nothing to the success of this great country, but constantly tears it down.
Al Eisner
Silver Spring
Democrats didn't make economic mess
Re: "Government made the mess. Now clean it up," Editorial, Oct. 21
I had trouble following the rational in this editorial. I fail to see how Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama can be responsible for the economic problems we are facing.
Carter had been out of office for four years when President Reagan appointed Mr. Greenspan to head the Federal Reserve, and Mr. Greenspan resigned several years before President Obama was elected.
In fact, we had Republican presidents for 10 of the 18 years Mr. Greenspan was in office. Your writer also ignored the nonexistent government oversight of Wall Street over the last eight years as the source of our present problems.
As for the "easy money" during Carter's presidency, we bought a house in the early 1980s and were glad we could get a FHA mortgage that only had a 9 percent interest rate.
George Bogart
Alexandria
