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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Reader Comments
After listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech and reading your commentary, I believe his focus must be on jobs (the economy) and education.
People are reading and hearing how the economy is improving, yet we still have 10 percent unemployment. Main Street doesn't see any real improvement. Disposable income is negligible, and interest rates for savings are next to nothing.
Retirees who have elected to take the early option for
Schools are suffering. Unfunded mandates like special education have played havoc on education budgets across the country. We talk about charter schools as a model to follow, but in my opinion, the unfunded mandates have financially destroyed educational budgets and negatively impacted our schools' ability to achieve.
STEVEN RIBACK
Monroe Township, N.J.
A shotgun works in the right venue. It does not work in politics and governance. Government needs to identify 10 national issues that have real importance to the country's citizens, not politicians. Perhaps we should create an apolitical survey organization utilizing sample groups in all 50 states.
A small bipartisan group appointed by the administration and
MICHAEL MCCLURE
Kanarraville, Utah
In the
An associate pastor of mine once said: "When God tells you to go to New York and you head for L.A. instead, repentance is not stopping in New Mexico and living there. Repentance is booking a flight to New York."
President Obama can build coalitions to pass true stimulus, which must consist of broad tax cuts rather than massive government spending. He can reduce corporate taxes. He can sign trade agreements now pending and aggressively negotiate others. He can slash bloated spending, which has been even further bloated by the stimulus package.
But alas, Obama's message is that he is bound for the Left Coast.
WAYNE MIDDLETON
Bartlesville, Okla.
I totally agree that President Obama and the federal government are trying to do too much. The most important job of the federal government right now is to reduce its size, limit the deficit, and create a realistic plan to pay off our mounting debt.
B. G. GALLOWAY
Maggie Valley, N.C.
I believe President Obama has done a good job so far when you take into consideration how full his plate has been since he took office. He is trying very hard to be a good quarterback for "we the people."
His big problem is the right side of his line in
RICHARD COATES
Lapeer, Mich.
Midterm Politics as Usual?
Historically, the majority party loses seats in midterm elections. Unfortunately for America, there does not seem to be anybody left for whom to vote. Either party in power assumes arrogance toward the electorate while rewarding the party faithful and large donors and themselves with pork-barrel largess to ensure re-election, the only thing that appears to matter to each of them. The minority party becomes obstructionist to even good legislation. We pay these politicians 365 days a year basically for very little in the way of accomplishments that truly enhance our country or the lives of all its citizens.
After midterm elections, we face another do-nothing
BONNIE R. AMBUEHL
Billings, Mont.
Military Medical Bureaucracy
I found your article about the severe shortage of military psychiatrists most interesting.
I am a triple-board-certified [adult, child, and forensic] psychiatrist with more than 30 years of experience. I live on Oahu, Hawaii, home to several military bases. I am willing to contract for several hours a week, but the military wants only full-time psychiatrists. What's the greater need: more psychiatrists or bureaucratic rigidity?
The Fort Hood disaster indicates the
MARK DILLEN STITHAM
Kailua, Hawaii
No Promises to Keep
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.S.S.R. Jack Matlock offers many astute observations in
"How the Cold War Wasn't Won".
On one important matter, however, Ambassador Matlock goes astray. He claims that
"at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. made promises to Moscow not to extend
In fact, no such "promises" were ever made.
The English, German, and Russian records of the negotiations leading to German reunification have become available in recent years,
and they show that
Indeed, the issue never came up during the negotiations on German reunification, and Soviet leaders at the time never claimed that
it did. Not until several years later, long after Germany had been reunified and the Soviet
Union had dissolved, did former Soviet officials begin insisting that the United States had "made
promises" in 1990 not to bring any of the former Warsaw Pact countries into
MARK KRAMER
Director, Cold War Studies Program,
Available at Amazon.com:
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
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