Regarding Jean W. Mowery’s Nov. 4 letter in which she asserts that our country would be “a lot better if the leadership were Republican or independent instead of Democratic” because “it seems the Democrats want the government to spend money it doesn’t have.”
Where was she during the last eight years of the Bush administration?
We are in today’s economic dilemma primarily because of the policies of the Bush administration and the Republicans. The Republican claim of fiscal conservatism was a joke as they took a surplus left by Clinton and turned it into the biggest deficit in recent memory. Two wars that were never paid for during Bush’s term is just one example of the mess that was left on Obama’s plate to clean up.
After eight years of spend, spend, spend, borrowing from China, ballooning the national debt, now the Republicans seem to have selective amnesia and are blaming Obama and his policies for our current economical and political woes.
I am not a Republican basher. In fact, I have voted for many Republican candidates in the past. However, I think a sense of fairness and objectivity is in order here. Obama has been spending money, which I’m sure he regrets having to spend, to get our country out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. He has been following the advice of many of the leading economists. If his policies don’t work, then Americans will vote him out in the next general election. And rightly so. In the meantime, Republicans need to regain their short term memories and accept the responsibility for their part in the current fiscal debacle.
Carol G. Gazell
Bradenton
Time to change party affiliation to independent
Those of you who know me know how much I dislike a hypocrite, therefore I am changing my party affiliation to independent. Over the years I’ve heard a number of senators and congressmen say the Democratic Party left them and that they didn’t leave the party. In my estimation, the Republican Party has become Democrat Lite.
My first overlooked clue that “party” was far from the most important factor in politics was when the Republican Party brought in an out-of-town politician to run for sheriff in the early 1980s. A group of us got together and backed Bradenton Police Chief Charlie Wells, and he whipped Jack Key in the primaries. The rest is history and we got an all-time great sheriff.
I strongly believe in principles over party and Gov. Charlie Crist had better hope another party doesn’t bring forth a candidate with my kind of “common sense principles.” We desperately need term limits in the U.S. Congress and Senate. The career politicians lose touch with reality much too quickly.
Frank Eldridge
Bradenton
Designate wide sidewalks as golf carts pathways
Could there be a simple solution to the current sidewalk golf cart problem in Parrish?
It would seem an easy task for the Manatee County Commission to designate the 8-feet wide concrete pathways bordering U.S. 301 in Parrish as golf cart paths or cart paths.
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