MWAA should sell toll road back to VDOT Re: “MWAA thumbs its nose at Congress,” Local Editorial, Dec. 9
I‘m amazed at the MWAA Board’s attempt to thwart a congressional act. On the other hand, Republicans’ clear motive to exert control over the board is to serve the interests of toll road users, not airline travelers. MWAA is supposed to serve the greater metropolitan region, and building Metrorail on the cheap will hamper its ability to compete with BWI and other transportation modes.
Perhaps MWAA should consider selling the toll road back to VDOT. As long as Sean Connaughton is in charge they won’t get state funding, but at least there would be no confusion about who’s responsible for the short-sighted planning.
It’s unrealistic to think that Dulles Airport will be able to entice greater numbers of international travelers to walk across two football fields to an aboveground Metro station. It’s really sad that the wealthiest municipalities in our nation are pushing for a half-fast transportation system. MWAA should suspend the Metrorail expansion until it has the funds to do the job right.
Jacob Janzen
Fairfax
Public overwhelmingly supports E-Verify
Re: “A cautionary tale on government spying,” Dec. 8
Iain Murray and David Bier don’t get the facts right on E-Verify. We could open up millions of jobs for American workers by requiring all U.S. employers to use this web-based program that quickly identifies individuals working illegally in the U.S. by checking the Social Security numbers of new hires. It only takes two minutes to check and those eligible to work here are immediately confirmed 99.5 percent of the time.
Under current law, employers are already required to document the work eligibility of employees under the paper-based I-9 system, which is outdated, cumbersome, confusing and error-prone. E-Verify is simply a 21st century update.
Opponents such as Murray and Bier often cite a flawed January 2011 Bloomberg Government study that claims a federal E-Verify requirement would cost small businesses $2.6 billion. But it relies on job turnover data that includes all changes of employment within a company — not just new hires — and some economists believe it overstates new hires by 25 to 33 percent. This is significant since an E-Verify requirement will, for the most part, only apply to new hires.
Another study on which Bloomberg relied found that 75 percent of all employers said that there were no costs associated with using E-Verify. With the facts on E-Verify’s side, it’s no wonder that over 300,000 employers who use the program voluntarily and 82 percent of the American public support it.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas
Chairman,
House Judiciary Committee.
Hermanator was never going to be GOP nominee
Re: “Why Democrats wanted Cain out of the race” Dec. 7
Without a scintilla of evidence, Gregory Kane speculates that Democrats wanted the willfully ignorant, abysmally unqualified Herman Cain out of the Republican presidential race for good reason, concluding: “Of course, I can’t prove that; but I won’t dismiss it either.”
This is driveling nonsense. Of all the candidates in this manifestly mediocre field, the notion of President Obama facing off against the Hermanator could do nothing but leave Democrats salivating over the prospect.
The truth is, long before the allegations of sexual harassment, extra-marital affairs, or his sundry misstatements of policy, Cain was never a serious candidate and his chances of capturing the party nomination, much less the White House, were always nil.
Craig Taylor
Alexandria
