The American Spectator

Be vewwy quiet, the Loony Left is Bush hunting.
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T WAIT AROUND BEFORE SCREWING UP
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s Reagan’s Third Inaugural Address:

Your article says in part:

“It was the government’s Smoot-Hawley tariff that dropped a protectionist wall around an America desperate for the jobs and economic growth that can only be provided by free trade.”

Not true. The “protectionist wall” was put up in 1828, not 1931. At the time of Smoot-Hawley tariffs were already high.
— James H. Murphy

IT WOULD TAKE AN ACTION HERO TO AVERT DISASTER
Re: Chris Reed’s Putting Government First:

Chris Reed puts a fine point on part of the problem in California, and it’s a shame that we are saddled with a never-ending stream of career idiots in the Governor’s Mansion. None have had the strength of character or conviction to do the really hard work of righting this listing ship as it founders. Spending cuts and tax cuts are the only solutions that will revive this once Titanic economy. Alas, like the Titanic the gash below the waterline is going to remain hidden as the MSM in California continues to oversell the failed socialist policies. We will fail because ever-increasing spending by people so drunk on their own power that they will drown before admitting they’ve failed. In the meantime, small business owners and people who actually have jobs and pay taxes suffer their folly until we all go down with the ship.
— Greg Mercurio
Vacaville, California

FAULTY PREMISES
Re: Andrew Cline’s Obama vs. James Madison:

Between Article One of the United States Constitution section 8, clause 18, aka “The Necessary and Proper Clause,”, stating: “The Congress shall have Power — To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof,” and the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” made perfectly clear that Mr. Cline’s repudiation of President Obama’s vision is correct and well principled.   

President/Messiah Obama offered, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”  The Prez/Savior is letting the public know, the age of big government is back — with a vengeance.

The federal government can provide services, such as domestic defense that cannot be provided by any other person or collective, but for most services, the government is far from the most efficient provider; in fact, it is often the most costly and cumbersome solution. The federal government, by adding multilayer bureaucracies and redundant, often self-contradictory, rules, more often hinders service than it does facilitate it. If Mr. Obama cares to ask what does the government do better than the private sector, the answer will be not much, but he starts the a priori assumption that government has a solid record of delivering the goods. This completely ignores history and current fact.

If one begins with the wrong questions, one cannot arrive at the right answers.
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

A FALSE HOPE
Re: Robert Stacy McCain’s Inaugural Memories:

I am curious. Will today’s inauguration end Al Gore’s tantrum?
— Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut

Sorry…but I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the TV yesterday. I wasn’t about to join in and sing Kumbayah with what SEEMED to be — or was presented by the press to be — the rest of the country. I find it quite hypocritical that those same folks who feverishly disrespected former President Bush are now saying “let’s join together in unity.”