Short-sighted Loudoun residents don’t deserve Metro
Re: “Loudoun supervisors to decide fate of $6 billion Silver Line,” July 3
The Loudoun board’s decision has already been made, but I have a comment about Liz Essley’s article.
Of course cost will be a major factor in the decision to bring rail to Loudoun, but the cost is not paid by the county alone. Some of it will be shared by the other transit partners.
Rail opponent David LaRock is quoted as opposing the rail extension to Loudoun because it would bring Metro crime into the county. If he is representative of Loudoun residents, then they are a miserly, short-sighted and litigious group.
People of the Washington area should be asking themselves if we really want to help bring greater accessibility to our region for these type of individuals.
Jake Janzen
Fairfax
Repeal Obamacare — and then really reform health care
Re: “As a tax hike, Obamacare is another broken promise,” Editorial, July 2
Tax versus penalty semantics aside, let’s focus on repealing Obamacare and enacting focused reforms:
– Provide a targeted and sustainable safety net to assist the poor and patients with catastrophic health care costs;
– Preserve patient access to health care professionals through conscience rights and malpractice reform;
– Cut government bureaucracy and paperwork and return decision making to patients and their physicians;
– Empower consumers with insurance competition between states and portability between jobs; and
– Encourage health savings accounts that protect against unaffordable expenses and let consumers choose care and medicines through transparent pricing.
Reforming health care is unquestionably challenging, but it’s not brain surgery. It works best when following basic principles most kindergartners learn: Help others up when they’ve fallen, keep your hands off other people’s stuff and save your lunch money for when it’s needed.
Jonathan Imbody
Washington
Conflicted council members failed to recuse themselves
Re: “Court blocks attack on crisis pregnancy centers,” Local Editorial, July 2
This editorial questions whether the Montgomery County Council had the “purest of motives” when it forced the Centro Tepeyac pregnancy center, which helps poor pregnant women deliver their babies if they choose, to place signs in its center basically directing women to abortuaries.
The signs were part of a national campaign by NARAL, which prepared a report falsely alleging that pregnancy center personnel misled women if they said abortion was not completely safe. NARAL tried to eliminate Maryland pregnancy centers, but after a hearing in the state legislature in which abortion risks were presented, their bill never received a vote.
Then NARAL went to Montgomery County, where it has much more political clout as a majority of council members remain patrons of the annual NARAL chocolate festival. One member was a former employee of the abortion industry who publicly denounced the pregnancy centers in advance of the county council hearing.
Council members ignored well-documented risk data showing deaths, severe and latent injuries — including premature deliveries in subsequent pregnancies — and voted for the NARAL statute, which even the pro-abortion Washington Post editorialized against. They did so even though more than 120,000 women have been helped in the pregnancy centers without a complaint.
Motives can be difficult to discern, but the fact that NARAL patrons on the council didn’t recuse themselves is damning.
John Naughton
Silver Spring
