An open letter to Bunning
Editor, The Times:
On behalf of our 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, we want to thank you for having the courage to stand up on their behalf and request that federal spending bills be accompanied by the money to pay for it [“After 5 days of drama, lawmaker yields on federal spending bill,” page one, March 3]. The firestorm that your actions created is a very small example of what will come because of the unsustainable increase in the federal debt.
We make a simple request of those congressional members who lack the courage to make the hard decisions that need to be made now: At least recognize you are guilty of child neglect! They put off the hardships and hard choices to the next generations that they are unwilling to make themselves. They have created a financial situation that ultimately will be irresolvable except by the devaluation of the dollar and the stripping away its position as the world currency. That day is fast approaching and viewing history for a moment, we can make some unsettling comparisons.
For example, 40 years ago, the United States won the “space race” when we landed on the moon. The results of that endeavor — in the form of technological advancements — far outweighed the cost. But as of the end of this year, we will no longer be able to travel in space but instead have to rely on the Russians. With an ever-increasing diversion of our taxes paying the interest on our debt, there will be no breakthroughs for this country in the future; We won’t be able to afford it.
In conclusion, thank you for taking the position you did and enduring the hypocrites that attacked you for political purposes — instead of acknowledging that your position was correct. Future generations will wish that there were more congressional members like you as they were growing up.
— Jim and Deb Lindgren, Sequim
Bunning’s tax-cut vote helped spur deficit
The senator from Kentucky who so valiantly held the line against further deficit spending is the classic example of current Republican hypocrisy.
This same principled gentleman voted lock, stock and barrel for every budget-busting, deficit-raising measure proposed and passed by the Bush administration — the results of which turned an inherited budgetary surplus into a more than $12 trillion debt in the course of eight years.
And Sen. Jim Bunning’s hypocrisy is not unique to him. Americans need to look beyond the froth and fury of our newly minted “fiscal conservatives” and ask them what role did they play in getting us into this dire predicament, before lighting their torches and burning down town hall.
— Ron Dickson, Seattle
Spending reasonable in disastrous circumstances
I wonder if Sen. Jim Bunning and his supporters would delay aid for an American city destroyed by an earthquake unless an “offset in spending” was found to not increase the federal deficit. Probably not unless only the poor and unemployed lived there.
— Arthur DePalma, Mill Creek