Speak Out 4/6/10

Equal services

IN response to the story "Spending in east, west sides an issue for some Cape voters": We all pay taxes, and we all are entitled to the same city services.

Children first

IF you like the highly successful Parents as Teachers program, be advised that the Missouri Legislature may be poised to cut the funding for the program at least by half. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. When it comes to budget cuts, young babies and children are among the first to be carried to the budget-cutting guillotine.

Reasonable debate

THE problem is simple: It has become impossible to engage in a reasonable rational debate with the right wing of the Republican Party and its spawn, the tea party. These folks start from a position. And if the evidence does not agree with it, they reject the evidence. Then they substitute their views for the evidence and pretend their conclusions are supported. If we cannot have a reasonable debate that acknowledges the evidence, we cannot possibly reach a reasoned conclusion about what our response and actions should be.

Finding no fault

GENE Lyons, like every far-left liberal, will never admit that the Democrats have made any bad decisions, regardless of what happens to our economy. When we are all enjoying the Canadian health care system and Lyons himself is on a waiting list to receive medical treatment, he will still happily proclaim the wonderful success of the Obama health care system. If he does find anything wrong with it, that part will be George Bush's fault. And he can call it Republican whining if he wants to, but he conveniently ignores the underhanded tactics the Democrats used to pass their monstrosity against the will of 60 percent of the American public. He'll just have to forgive the Republicans for feeling that they have to voice their disagreement with what was done.

Moribund movement

IT'S sad in a way that you would choose an ancient anachronism like Phil Gramm to try to drum up support for an already moribund repeal-the-health-care-bill movement. He propagated so many myths about the just-passed health care bill in his column that space prohibits listing them all. One of them is Gramm's assertion that the new law allows for a government takeover of health care. That is simply a lie. Even if the Republicans took control of the Congress and the presidency, the chances that they would then repeal the bill are zero. That's why the GOP has resorted to a most anti-conservative and doomed-to-fail effort to get the bill thrown out by the courts. Of course, most of the pols leading the anti-health care reform bill effort know this and are engaged in the most cynical of pure preening and posturing.

Pick Romney

I don't mean to rile up responsible Republican businessmen and women, but the best man President Obama could pick to administer the health care program is someone who has already had a lot of experience in business administration and the health care program is like the one he favors. His name is Mitt Romney.

Sick attitude

I'D like to speak on behalf of all the health care workers who have been verbally abused. When you see a doctor, we know you're sick and don't feel well, but that gives the patient no right to cuss us out and be hateful. We are more than happy to assist patients, but this is ridiculous. People need to get a grip and have an attitude adjustment.