Ideology rules the GOP

To the editor:

In his Jan. 8 column, David Limbaugh first refers to president-elect Obama's economic recovery plan as "manure." He is fortunate his very civil mother is no longer here to read how crude her son has become.

Next, he rails against the middle-class tax cuts that are the heart of the Obama plan by saying: "But despite his denials, Obama's intention to target the cuts to the 'middle class' and exclude higher-income earners, whose stimulated activity has been shown to have the greatest economic impact, betrays his crippling bondage to ideology."

Who, exactly, is crippled by ideology? If the GOP is so bound to tax cuts for the wealthy and if it still believes trickle-down economics works after our experience of it over the past eight years, then the party of crippling ideology is not the Democratic Party.

We live in a middle-class society, and our economy is driven by the spending power of the middle class. The GOP is writing its obituary if it continues to be the party that serves the wealthy alone and spurns the middle class.

And, by the way, a bit of civility to our new president would be fairly common courtesy.

JOHN L. COOK, Cape Girardeau