Letters to the Editor: June 20, 2012

Re: “Obama’s amnesia about his first year as president,” June 15

President Obama blames George W. Bush and partisan politics for government gridlock, but the actual cause is his own agenda. Having conned the voting public into thinking he would be the new beginning in cooperation in Washington, President Obama has embarked upon a social re-engineering program with three main tenets:

1. Set the bar low, especially in education;

2. Support illegal immigration as a source of votes, if nothing else; and

3. Ignore the Constitution and rule by presidential decree.

Supporting him is the attorney general’s office, which is more worried about Roger Clemons than answering questions about the gun-running operation that led to the death of a U.S. Border Control agent.

President Obama’s decision to ignore the wishes of the electorate in favor of the far-left political elite is a breach of public trust and makes him not worthy of re-election.

Thomas Winthrop

Fairfax

Low prices could put farmers out of business

Re: “End the billion-dollar farm bill bailout,” June 15

Veronique de Rugy doesn’t seem to understand the economics of farming. It’s unlikely that the record-level commodity prices farmers are currently enjoying will last.

Daryll Ray and Harwood D. Schaffer of the University of Tennessee write: “Historically, the production of agricultural crops, sooner or later, outruns demand, resulting in multi-year periods of low prices.” Furthermore, a 2007 report from the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Texas Tech University states that most countries “use guaranteed minimum prices and import tariffs to protect domestic producers.” This can suppress prices on the world market, putting our farmers at risk.

Agricultural prices are determined by global supply and demand. Farmers make their planting decisions based on prices, not “shallow loss” programs. If prices for one crop are too low, they’ll grow something else.

The accompanying graph is misleading because it includes households living in poverty. It would be more useful to compare farmers to other small business owners. We need a program that doesn’t make farmers rich, but does help them stay in business.

Terry Nuhn

Arlington

American taxpayers pay for forced abortions in China

Those who support the communist Chinese one-child per family policy can see one of the graphic results of that policy by searching the Internet under “Chinese Woman Seven Months Pregnant Beaten, Forcibly Aborted.”

President Obama and his Democratic comrades give the United Nations Population Fund about $40 million every year to support China’s one-child policy. Thanks to our abortion president, we are all paying for this horror. The United States deserves a more humane president.

William Luksic

Rockville