The hypocrisy is incredible

Accountability is lost. Case in point:

The Obama administration had the trifecta majority for two years, but still to this day blames the Bush administration; however, the GOP has had the House majority for less that one year, yet the tea party who voted them in are getting the blame from everyone Democratic.

I'm tired of those who were driving the nation "forward" toward the edge of the financial cliff, and as the bus ran out of gas, blames the tea party for not allowing them to borrow more gas (money) to finish driving us over the edge! Incredible the hypocrisy!

ADAM BENSON

East Ridge

Officials need to remain at work

How many "vacations" do our elected officials think they deserve?

Our country is in "big" trouble, and it just seems to me that our elected officials are more responsible for it while "we, the people," suffer.

Entitlements, giving free checks to illegal aliens from our Social Security that they have not paid a dime into, not enforcing our borders, driver's license for people who can't even read our road signs, giving themselves "raises" without any approval from we, the people, and so much more!

It is insanity the way government runs our business and the country's! If you or I ran a business like our government, good heavens!

Oh, I forget, print more money! Bail out anybody who is not able to compete in "free enterprise."

Why do people run for office and then complain that they need more time away from it?

It is insulting to folks who are losing everything they have to not be "in office" working on the problems our country has before taking time off!

Oh, I guess it is "W's" fault again! Or, it may take "another four years!" A lot of us won't be here at this rate!

TOM HAWKS

Soddy-Daisy

Lincoln's decisions saved the nation

A few days ago, a gent from Ooltewah stated that Abraham Lincoln ruined the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. government by his actions during the War Between the States, or the Civil War, as it is commonly known, thanks to our friends north of the Mason-Dixon.

It may interest readers to know that more men and boys died in that conflict than in all of the previous wars put together (over 650,000).

Lincoln held office in a more serious circumstance than any other president.

He stated that he had to take liberties with the Constitution to save the Union and, in fact, also intimated that if he could have stopped the war by leaving slaves alone he would have done so.

Had it not been for Lincoln's decisions the war would have lasted much longer and maybe the Union would have remained divided.

One of the best books on Lincoln is David Donald's "Lincoln Reconsidered."

By the way, that war was so expensive that the government began to print huge amounts of money and it was inflated so badly that one barber papered his shop with it because it was cheaper than wallpaper.

So this makes our present situation not look so bad!

DR. GEORGE A. MILLER

Ooltewah

GOP seeks to hide candidates' selves

When Rick Perry ranted that President Obama does not love America and suggested that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is "almost a traitor," he showed voters that he responds not by addressing issues, rather by attacking persons with whom he disagrees.

Imagine Perry's response as president when an individual citizen, group, or foreign country disagrees with him.

Republican leaders in Congress have expressed concern over Perry's remarks - not because they reveal a reckless personality and world view dangerous to democracy, but because when voters hear the real Rick Perry, before the public relations machine gets hold of him, he "could scare off swing voters."

This hothead beloved by the tea party and funded by a few billionaires has small chance of being nominated, much less elected. But it should give us pause that to the Republican leadership, neither character nor ability to lead of Republican candidates, nor how low the common denominator they represent, matters.

What matters is that Republican candidates' true selves remain hidden just long enough to be elected. Please think about this.

FAYE WALTER

Sewanee Tenn.

Change policies to correct slide

Germany, with less than one-third our population, ranks second only to China in exports and sells almost half its GDP abroad. Why do we, still indisputably the world's richest nation, not do better?

Is it education? 52 percent of Americans have some college and 27.2 percent hold degrees, whereas only 15 percent of Germans are college graduates. Might we be sending too many people to college?

Do other countries work harder? Americans work more hours per week than almost any other developed nation.

Is it outsourcing, another favorite whipping boy? More American workers are probably displaced by automation and technology than by off-shore labor.

What is it then? Could it be those dirty words conservatives can't stand, government economic policy? Most other developed countries use a VAT tax structure to control domestic consumption and encourage exports and are far ahead of us in technical and vocational education, also a function of government.

Until we divorce ourselves from the conservative-tea-party-libertarian party line that everything done by government is inherently inefficient, corrupt and wasteful and the answer to every problem is tax cuts, privatization and blind trust in that illusive "efficient, self-correcting" free market, our lemming-like plunge toward second-rate economic status will continue.

GEORGE B. REED JR.

Rossville, Ga.

Cut welfare, budget to really help poor

I was offended by the Congressional Black Caucus' accusation that the tea party and Republicans do not care about the poor. Please do not confuse cutting programs that "claim to help" the poor with actually helping the poor.

As a teenager, I heard President Lyndon Johnson say that if we enacted his Great Society, we could "end poverty in our generation." Not only was this not done, but now we have layer upon layer of bureaucracy with only trillions of dollars of debt to show for it. We haven't helped the poor; we have hurt the poor.

We need to stop subsidizing girls having babies and force them to live at home with their parents where at least their children will have a father figure to mentor them.

Only by cutting regulation and bureaucracy will we free up America's entrepreneurial spirit to produce the jobs that the poor actually need. Cut welfare; cut handouts; cut the bloated federal budget and truly help the poor.

GERALD WHITELY

Ringgold, Ga.

Many can't afford a tax increase

I cannot believe that the city is even considering going up on taxes by 37 cents.

We on a fixed income cannot afford this. We do not get raises. Our taxes were not frozen when we voted it in. Jobs are gone.

I worked on a public job for 44 years and can barely survive on my $1,229 a month.

Sen. Bob Corker said the average American made $43,000 a year. I guess that I cannot add and subtract. My calculations are not that. I suppose this is what the upper class makes. Not the middle income.

BETTYE THOMAS

Hixson

TV and movies get too raunchy

It seems that PG-13 movies were allowed one non-sexual F-word per script. You really don't think these trash movie makers were going to stop at just one word, of course not.

They pulled the same thing when they wanted to show raunchy trash on television, which was a no-no at the time. Please, please they begged, we will only show these after midnight.

You know how long that worked. Soon it was the soaps and evening programs.

If you want to see raunch, surf the programs on Sunday afternoon.

All right, already, I do switch channels and I also delete channels.

WILLIAM J. BURTON

Cleveland, Ten.