LETTERS

— Surplus built at cost of security

Some say that the Clinton administration ended with a surplus squandered by the Bush administration. But to achieve that surplus, Bill Clinton cut the Defense Department through the fiscal 1998 budget. It then went up but not enough to overcome the cuts. He also cut intelligence-how much is hard to tell due to secrecy.

But George Tenet, then CIA director, said, "By the mid-1990s, the intelligence community was operating with a significant erosion in resources and people, [and] the infrastructure to recruit, train and sustain officers for our clandestine services was in disarray."

There were at least five terrorist attacks against Americans during the Clinton administration, and Osama bin Laden declared war on us, yet Clinton did little to defend our interests. In fact, it was reported that Sudan offered to arrest bin Laden and send him to the United States. Sandy Berger, his national security adviser, is on record saying, "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States."

When George W. Bush took office, we had a national security deficit, we were in a recession, the Y2K employment buildup was over, the stock market bubble had burst, and shortly thereafter came the 9/11 attacks, sinking the economy even more.

The surplus vanished in the ashes of the twin towers, and taking the war to them, along with using tax cuts to refuel the economy, was the right thing to do. The cost is dear, but the alternative is dire.

HERSH ZARECOR Hot Springs Village

Small schools can excel

Re your editorial citing the recent charges against a Pine Bluff School District employee accused of felony forgery and theft: I would like to write a lengthyresponse chiding the editorialist for using this as an excuse to make a case for consolidation of Arkansas' school districts, but as the superintendent of a wonderful,small school district, I am too busy reviewing and signing every requisition, every purchase order and every single check that is issued by the school district.

If you are going to use alleged mismanagement of funds as a valid reason for calling for consolidation, please be sure that you don't use school size as the exclusive factor. The smaller the district, the less bureaucracy and the greater the potential for oversight of school funds. Do not confuse school size with excellence of management.

BRENDA L. TYLER Appleton

Rules must've changed

After 78 years, I now learn that you are supposed to place hand over heart during the National Anthem. (Maybe I missed this rule from not going to ballgames.)

I knew you did the hand/heart thing during the Pledge of Allegiance, but this is a new one. Are you also supposed to hold your mouth just so? Wear red, white and blue on Thursdays? Grow an Uncle Sam beard? I'd better rush out and buy a flag pin, since America now measures patriotism by the Pharisee rule book.

On another matter, letter writer William Zellman claims that a majority of the world's scientists agreed during the 1970s that we were headed into another ice age. Back in the 1970s, I read an interesting book about the ice-age theory. I think one of the authors was an engineer. But very few scientists signed on to the idea.

Apparently, Zellman sees little difference between two guys who wrote a popular book in the '70s and a majority of the world's scientists today. I wonder who started that myth about the '70s scientists and the ice age. Maybe the same person who decided everybody must hold his hand over his heart while some singer mangles "The Star-Spangled Banner."

CORALIE KOONCE Fayetteville

Banner excuse nonsense

President Bush's spokesperson-the one who didn't know about the Bay of Pigs-has given us some new clarification of the infamous "Mission accomplished" banner that was displayed on the aircraft carrier steaming just out of sight of San Diego five years ago, saying it "should have been much more specific." But to me it still sounds like "The dog ate my homework."

I spent a little time aboard ship in the Navy and returned from a couple of rotations overseas. As I remember, the Navy is kind of picky about shipboard displays. In "dress ship," for instance, the exact order of display of every single one of the quartermaster's flags is prescribed. But Bush's people tell us that the ship's crew asked for the banner and the White House had it made by a private vendor. Just how would the crew, all 5,000 of them, do this? Did they have a referendum from department to department, from division to division? Did all ranks and ratings participate? And then who did the crew or its representatives ask? The exec? The first lieutenant? The supply officer? Certainly not the captain! And how did their request get to the White House? And who paid the "private vendor"? Could Halliburton or KBR have gotten the contract through one of their tax-exempt subsidiaries?

This patent nonsense is just what we should expect from this administration [and] from all the other chickenhawks who send other people and their children off to fight and die in the wars they manipulate and create.

JON ZIMMER Fayetteville

Every economy mixed

I would like to enlighten some recent letter writers as to some elementary economic theory.

First, a true free-market economy exists solely in the imaginations of textbook writers. The closest to the ideal would be Somalia, which has not had a completely recognized central government since the early 1990s.

All economies are actually mixed economies that are made up of government businesses, private businesses and consumers. Communist countries do have a few recognized private companies, although most of their economy is government-owned, and countries that consider themselves free-market do have governments. A government is generally perceived as a good thing. The aforementioned Somalia is rarely upheld as a model of a successful country.

Governments are funded by taxes. Some taxes are income-based. Many, such as grocery taxes, hit the working poor and the middle classes the hardest. Over the past 20 years, the gap between the wealthiest in the United States and the middle classes has grown. All signs point to a shrinking middle class. This is very dangerous. A strong middle class is the backbone of the economy.

As some taxes, such as grocery taxes, hit the lower-income earners the hardest, it could be considered fair that higherincome earners pay marginally more on their higher rates of income. Currently, the wealthiest people in the United States pay the lowest rates of total taxation compared to their income.

MIKE EDWARDS Jacksonville

Feedback

Hillary earned a shot

Hillary Clinton is a liberal politician. I am a conservative mom. I am a cable news junkie, and this election season the news shows have been very addictive, but I am so fed up with the pundits trying to get Hillary out of the race.

I have lost all respect for all the naysayers and double-guessers. Now I refuse to watch the news shows anymore.

Not that I would vote for Hillary, but I am tired of the boys' clubs trying to harass Hillary out of the race. It reminds me of when my youngest daughter wanted to play baseball. Her teammates, all boys, harangued and harassed her mercilessly. I wanted to talk to her teammates, coaches, the parents, but my daughter said, "No, Mom, it makes me a stronger person." And so it has. So I say to Hillary what I said to my daughter: You go, girl.

TANYA B. JACKSON Arkadelphia

Heroes not in China

In his letter, Richard Lewis calls Olympic athletes heroes, but I suggest that our real heroes are not in China, but in Iraq and Afghanistan.

DON SHORT Farmington

Editorial, Pages 102 on 05/18/2008

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