D.C. voters take low road in rejecting Fenty
Re: “Oh no, Mr. Gray!” Oct. 17
Jonetta Rose Barras blew a gasket over some shady characters who were movers and shakers behind Vincent Gray’s candidacy now being considered for top jobs in the Gray administration. What she doesn’t grasp is how Gray’s primary win returns D.C. to “business as usual.”
Mayor Fenty proved that strong, effective leadership can bring about good services, but the electorate was unwilling to pay the political price. Most people prefer to tolerate substandard services rather than unilateral decisions such as mass firings of alleged underperformers, etc., even if they’re good ones.
Fenty has announced that he has no intention of seeking further public office, which should be no surprise. He has learned the futility of trying to make D.C. a better place. Like Ayn Rand’s character in “Atlas Shrugged,” Hank Rearden, Fenty is despised because he ran the city so effectively. However, many doors in the corporate world will open for him the day he leaves office.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria
Democrats don’t know how to fix economy
President Obama and Maryland’s liberal senators and representatives are good at promising great things, but do not know how to do the hard work of delivering on their promises. They pass bills with thousands of pages, but do not know what’s in them. They set up programs with thousands of federal employees, but do not know what they do.
Two years ago, Democrats were telling voters that the economic sky was falling, so I e-mailed one of our longtime senators. The response I got was that they knew about these economic problems for some time, had the knowledge to fix them, so I should therefore trust them to do so. Two years later, it is obvious that they do not know how to fix the economy and the fearmongering was just an empty political ploy.
The present group in power serves only the few. They pretend they cannot hear the majority of Americans who want them to protect our borders, stop wasteful programs, move people off of welfare and into jobs, spend only what comes in, and tax all fairly. I only hope that voters have finally had enough and elect only honest candidates, of either party, who advocate streamlined solutions, not big-government programs that do nothing and last forever.
The Rev. Michael T. Buttner
Forest Hill, Md.
November is time for major course correction
Far left-wing liberal Democrats-turned-wealth-redistributing progressives refuse to acknowledge that the subprime mortgage crisis was the prime mover in the financial meltdown. So they forced so-called financial reforms that do not control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but do control all of us Americans. Wall Street’s credit default swaps would not have been a problem if not for the worthless bundled subprime mortgages from the federal banking enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats’ push to put people in houses they could not afford.
Last week’s glossy flier from the Maryland Democratic Party scrapes the bottom of the barrel when it blames congressional candidate Andy Harris, a free-market conservative legislator, for the financial meltdown and job losses. Dr. Harris will work for a low-tax climate that will build small businesses, create jobs and put America’s economy on the right track. What have far-left tax-and-spend progressive Democrats done for you lately besides destroy wealth and jeopardize your retirement?
Congress will come back after Judgment Day and allow President Bush’s tax cuts to expire and blame the greatest tax increase in U.S. history on Republicans. I hope everyone is paying close attention to the myriad attacks on our freedoms and vote to make a grand correction in November.
Mike Finley
Easton, Md.
