Even liberals in Arlington want to balance the budget I attended Rep. Jim Moran’s budget workshop Monday night in Ballston and was stunned by the number of concerned Northern Virginians who were committed to cutting billions of dollars in government spending in an effort to balance the budget and reduce the national debt.
Northern Virginia — and Arlington in particular — is very liberal, but on nearly every major spending issue presented by the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, attendees overwhelmingly supported dramatic cuts. One person in my group said: “We can’t keep spending. Everything must be on the table.”
My group alone cut over $2.2 trillion from the federal budget over 10 years. Congressman Moran, who’s certainly not known for his fiscal prudence, would do well to listen to his constituents — both liberal and conservative. There seems to be bipartisan consensus on cutting the size and scope of government.
Matthew Hurtt
Arlington
Space goals for Muslims should be shelved
Re: “Space program was our biggest bridge to nowhere,” July 11
Mr. Gene Healy should have mentioned that President Obama issued three goals for our space program that he wanted the NASA administrator to foster. One was to make the Muslim world feel good by bringing them into our space program as a member of the fold, acknowledging their contributions to the world of science and mathematics.
It’s a little too late for this noble gesture. Maybe sometime in the future Obama’s idea could be become a reality, but only when the volatile nations of the Middle East learn how to live in peace with each other.
Bernard Helinski
Baltimore
NLRB has become a political tool for liberals
Re: “Obama wants Boeing, workers resolve conflict,” July 8
The National Labor Relations Board seems more like a relic of a past when injustice to workers was a greater threat to society than the power of big labor and an overbearing government to destroy the freedoms of private enterprise. The NLRB has become a liberal political tool that projects big labor’s power in a society that no longer benefits from its policies and actions.
Boeing’s operations are significantly improved by the absence of union labor strikes, which previously crippled its Washington state plant. But the NLRB has intervened on the machinist union’s behalf in an attempt to stop Boeing from relocating to South Carolina, where 9,000 jobs were created during construction of the plant, and 4,000 more permanent aircraft production jobs will be created. But the NLRB claims that Boeing relocated to “retaliate” against the union for previous strikes.
On the one hand, the Obama administration complains that businesses export jobs overseas, while at the same time renders it impossible to operate efficiently in America by erecting anti-business policies and the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It is clearly time for a change in leadership at the White House — and time to either reform or jettison the NLRB.
Bob Jack
North Las Vegas, Nev.
