Only Examiner tackles outrageous overspending
Re: “States aren’t broke, they’re on tax-and-spend binges,” Oct. 9
Another fine article by Marta Mossburg in Washington’s preeminent newspaper. She misses only one important point: it’s not that the states don’t know how to reduce spending, they are unwilling to buck the employee unions that control their governments and dictate salaries and benefits that are 42 percent higher than what is paid for the same work in the private sector. The salient fact from her article is that state taxing was double the rate of growth of the GDP, almost three times the rate of inflation, and ten times household income growth. The real puzzler is why, in the journalistic community, only The Examiner focuses on the colossal mismanagement going on at the state, county and city level all over the country. Why pay for a newspaper if it is not covering the most important issues? It is also puzzling why the GOP does not raise hell about the situation in Annapolis and similar overspending at the county level. As the above statistics show, what is going on is outrageous.
Richard C. Kreutzberg
Chevy Chase
No excuse for abandoning our allies again
Should the U.S. abandon Iraq or Afghanistan after their populations put their lives on the line to vote for democratic governments, we will be fully responsible for all the horrors that follow and I will be ashamed to call myself an American. We know what the terrorists – be they al Qaeda, Taliban, or any other gang – do to our allies: They saw their heads off, butcher people alive, and then show it on TV and the Internet. During the Vietnam war, the antiwar crowd claimed they did not know the outcome of abandoning the peoples of Southeast Asia to the communists. After all, they did not see the Marxists murder tens of millions on television. But even this sorry profession of ignorance is unavailable today. Mr. Obama has been handed victories in both places wrapped a neat package. The surge has secured Iraq, and he has inherited effective and proven generals, unlike Lincoln or Bush – who had to wait for military talent to reveal itself over time. The president only needs to let the military finish the job.
Wayne Thompson
Alexandria
Everyone must share in education of young
Re: “Give seniors a tax break,” From Readers, Oct. 7
Is B.C. Murphy kidding? We’re seniors and times are hard, so we shouldn’t have to contribute to the education of children anymore? Times are hard all over. They’re just as hard for people who are working and don’t have subsidized programs to help them through. Maybe I should get my own taxes back for services I don’t use but which Murphy likely considers necessary, such as ambulances, senior programs at the community center, Medicare, and Social Security. That’s the point of a public utility. It doesn’t benefit everyone all the time, but as a society we all are enriched by its presence. Does Murphy realize that those children will be running the country some day? And what would have happened if someone decided to implement the same idea 100 years ago?
Valerie Silensky
Mount Rainier
