Letters to the Editor

It has been a long journey for Obamacare, but a train wreck it is not. The no prisoners taken, no quarters given fight may have been worth it, although the nation’s other business has been stiffed by the Republicans’ monomania for three years.

However, it wasn’t all wasted time. As in most of America’s major debates, everybody now knows more than they did.

A lot of scales fell off of a lot of Republican eyes. Our health system, they learned, is first only in its per-capita costs.

It is now generally accepted that we are way back in the pack when it comes to many services such as infant care, diabetes and obesity prevention. Most now acknowledge that something needs to be done.

It is probably too early to break out the champagne. More than 7 million people have signed up.

Still, that doesn’t mean that all of them will pay up, and Republicans will still be trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act at every step.

Maybe it would be OK to put a few bottles in the fridge.

Although local radio station KMBZ 98.1 FM is avowedly conservative, some standard of decency must, or should, still apply. It seems to me that, although conversation has no self-imposed limits, broadcasting should be held to a higher standard.

KMBZ aired a commercial on March 31 that was not just full of lies, it was one entire falsehood.

The extent of the spot and its extreme language was shocking. Although the message coincided with the philosophy of the station, a sense of decency and self-respect should prevail.

It is no longer enough to voice opposing opinions, and our language has sunk to appalling depths. Messages filled with hate and ugly characterizations, with nothing considered too extreme, contribute to and exacerbate the country’s growing polarization.

Extremism has become routine and the door is closing on decency and respect for another’s legitimate difference of opinion.

Here we go again, the same old line, tax breaks for the rich under the guise of job creation (4-2, A2, “House panel unveils its proposal”). We have given massive tax breaks to the rich and to corporations since the 1980s, except for eight years during President Bill Clinton's term.

President Ronald Reagan sold us a bill of goods called trickle down economics. If, and I mean if, the rich and the corporations had been creating jobs with the tax breaks they were given, this great nation would be thriving beyond belief and would not have slid into the great recession from which we still have not fully recovered.

But instead they took the tax breaks and created jobs in Third World nations they could exploit. Rep. Paul Ryan is no better than a snake oil salesman trying to sell us another trickle down idea.

I say we as Americans should stand up and tell them we will give you tax breaks for good-paying American jobs and nothing less. The GOP has buffaloed a vast majority of Americans into believing that tax breaks have been creating jobs, but the numbers just do not add up.

Tell your state and federal representatives that with tax breaks we must have jobs, not just a larger bank account.

Concerning a Supreme Court case currently being decided and some people asking whether Hobby Lobby can refuse to sell to people who support the use of contraceptives, no, company officials cannot refuse to serve customers.

Hobby Lobby workers serve whoever shops at their stores. It is the choice of the consumer to shop or not shop at businesses that have beliefs that are counter to their own. The power lies with the consumer, for they are the ones businesses court.

As an analogy, on the abortion issue the left likes to say, “Against abortion? Don’t have one!” OK, using that thinking I say, “Against Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs? Don’t shop there!”

This story was originally published April 15, 2014 at 11:32 PM with the headline "Letters to the Editor."