LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Tactics meant to kill reform

The screaming voices and the mobs playing to the cameras at the meetings with members of Congress tell one important fact: The enemies of health care reform are spending millions and using scare tactics to halt reforming our health care system.

Don't kid yourself, this is not a freewheeling, vigorous debate; this is a fullthrottle effort to shut down any discussion. Who is helping to pay for the defeat of reform? There are clues in the list of big donors to members of Congress. All of that information is available online at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The opponents of reform believe itis money well spent. After all, they want to protect their profits.

As for scare tactics, the euthanasia lie is one of the worst. There is no such thing as a death panel anywhere in any health care bill under consideration. Under consideration is a provision that would allow Medicare once every five years to pay for an optional, voluntary discussion with a person's doctor. The discussion could include information that would help the person prepare a living will or advance directive.

Arkansas has such a law. Every time you enter a hospital in Arkansas, the question is asked, "Do you have a living will or advance directive?" because if, God forbid, you should become permanently unconscious, the hospital personnel need to know what efforts they should employ at that point. When you are permanently unconscious and unable to tell your family members what you want, a living will is a big help. We all need living wills.

L.B. LANGFORD Little Rock

Pryor's shyness suspect

Daddy told me that if someone would not look you in the eye, he was not to be trusted. When Mark Pryor did not hold open, face-to-face town hall meetings, this teaching came to mind.

I decided that I would give him another chance, since he does work for me and I had several questions and suggestions about the bills before him. I called his office to make an appointment to talk to him. However, I did not receive a response.

I could not refuse to talk to my employer and keep my job, and I don't think he can manage to do that either. Polish your resume, senator.

GAYLE JUNGKIND Roland

Have one plan for all

The health care issue would be solved immediately if everyone from Barack Obama to the lowest peon is placed under the same plan, no exceptions. Medicare would be solved in a minute if everyone from Obama to the lowest peon is placed under the same plan, no exceptions.

Do away with the aisle BS in the House and Senate chambers. Seat them alphabetically in both houses. If you are a Democrat and are seating next to a Republican, tough. Immediately, the aisle becomes a division. We don't need this.

Lobbyists we don't need. All they are are bloodsuckers. If we the American people are not smart enough to elect politicians who can make decisions on their own judgment, they never should have been elected. We then have to vote them out of office. The amount of money spent on lobbyists is just astronomical. For what?

I would strongly recommend term limits for all of Congress and the Supreme Court. Eight years should be the limit. We have people serving in both who are nearly on life support. It seems that the longer they serve, the more corrupt they become. Eight years is more than enough. Then they go on Social Security if they are old enough or they get a job like the rest of us.

JOE RUPP Hot Springs Village

Lyons stuck in the past

The Gene Lyons column, "Fear based on falsehoods," was a hoot. Lyons, like the Democratic leadership, just doesn't get it.

He calls us the GOP's "lunatic fringe." I am not unpatriotic or a brownshirt, a terrorist, an evil monger or part of a mob. Lyons is so full of vitriol and hate for conservatives that I am afraid that someday he is going to spontaneously combust.

Lyons is stuck in the year 2000. Someone please wake this man up and show him a calendar. This is 2009. The mainstream media love and worship Barack Obama. If you don't believe that Obama is not going to go after [FOX News] and conservative talk radio, then you are drinking the Kool-Aid.

Lyons tried to smear Sarah Palin but inadvertently would up supporting her position. He wrote that Alaska's "former governor has uttered something so cosmically stupid that only true believers could possibly credit her." He quoted Palin's "death panel" writing. Then near the end of his column he wrote, "Quite like the Terri Schiavo episode, which Republicans also mistook for a winning issue, it's not about abstract ideology. It's about the most intimate and solemn decisions we all must make. People think about such things harder than about politics, and they bitterly resent being lied to."

What a wonderful example. A "death panel" of liberal lawyers, judges and her husband made the decision to kill her. Terri's loving family and friends could not save her. Isn't that what Sarah was saying?

MAE MARTIN MarshallGet behind

Matt Jones

I am a fan of former Razorback Matt Jones. I don't understand why the Jaguars let him go. He had really begun to play hard after he made a bad mistake in judgment.

I cannot believe that an NFL team has not signed him to play. He has shown that he knows he made a mistake and is paying dearly for it. What Matt was charged with pales when you read about Michael Vick, the dog killing and torturing of the dogs. He is getting ready to play again.

I wish that all of Matt's fans would get after these NFL teams. Someone needs to give him another chance. I believe he will be a great player. There is a team out there that will be glad it gave him a chance.

VIVIAN MEINS DeWitt

Spending spree decried

I am appalled at the money that Congress has so generously spent this session. The bailout of the car manufacturers and the banks was done hastily and somewhat hysterically, to my mind. Now comes health reform with another costly price tag. With unemployment at almost 10 percent, with workers taking pay cuts and barely surviving, they continue to spend money and propose more new taxes. What are they thinking?

My solution would be to cut the pay, perks and benefits of all elected officials, both federal and state, with a moratorium on any raises for three years. I have watched members of Congress raise their pay for the past three years. (Or is it more?) Each year my opinion of them goes downhill. It reminds me of pigs at a trough. They should be aware that we are watching them-very closely.

FAYE A. MARTIN Monticelle

'Venom' adds nothing

I cannot understand what possessed the Voices editor to publish the vile letter by Robert Bayne. What possible value does such a letter add to any dialogue about current issues?

You might say that he is entitled to his opinions and be permitted to voice them, and I will agree. However, a responsible newspaper should be at the forefront of enlightening the issues, perhaps even actively pursuing facts to facilitate a reasoned discussion of the many concerns being voiced lately. The issues facing us today, like the health care reform, can and should be discussed on their merits so long as the facts are mutually understood. A letter like Bayne's contributes nothing meaningful to anything other than to give him an opportunity to publicly spew his venom.

JOHN FREELY Maumelle

Access comes as news

Pat Lynch wrote in his column that he was disturbed to learn that lobbyists go to the White House on an equal footing with voters and taxpayers. Now where did he get the idea that voters and taxpayers can go to the White House?

The only way I could even get to see my senators or representative would be to show up with a handful of cash for a campaign contribution. If you call them, some kid answers the phone and says he will give them the message. If you write to them, they just type the question into the computer and it spits out the right form letter. No wonder people are frustrated at town meetings.

I understand that our representative Marion Berry is not even going to hold a town hall meeting during the recess. He is, as Bill O'Reilly says, hiding under the desk. He came to our coffee table one time several years ago, but when the questions started needing direct answers, his aide took his arm and said they had to be somewhere else. I heard later that he went over to City Hall and sat around with a more friendly crowd, that everyone there was a politician or worked for one.

So if Lynch knows some way that voters and taxpayers can get access to the White House, he needs to let us know.

THOMAS TAYLOR Heber Springs

Hard work built nation

Kudos to Janet R. Siebert of Pea Ridge for her excellent letter on returning to the basics and principles upon which this country was built.

It is apparent that Barack Obama and his left-wing liberals are bent upon the destruction of this great country and the freedoms established by the Constitution of the United States.

It is the hard-working individuals who built this nation, not the federal government that is seeking to destroy it.

MACK HARNESS Fayetteville

Feedback

Little interest in views

So Paul Greenberg has an obsessive, deep-seated and (self-evidently) childish disdain for Walter Cronkite and his place in history. OK, we get it. What Paul may not understand is that most folks could not care less about his views on "Uncle Walter"- or his views on okra, bicycles, rainbows or unicorns, for that matter.

But Paul's admiration for snopes.com and his zeal in debunking the myths and outright untruths that surround us are to be highly commended. I'm sure we'll soon be reading his scathing expose on the whoppers being told by his conservative brethren regarding, say, health reform. Perhaps he could start by debunking Sarah Palin's "death panel" idiocy.

Get after 'em, Paul. Smite them with your pen in one hand and your Pulitzer in the other, a prize of which, I'm sure, you are as proud as Milli Vanilli was of their Grammy. But go on with your bad self, Paul. You just keep on being the petulant, hypocritical blowhard we've come to know and love. You, sir, are an entertainment.

S.R. PATRICK Little Rock

Give criticism a rest

Not that he needs anyone fighting his battles for him, but will everyone please lay off criticizing Paul Greenberg? He is the most valuable asset that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has, erudite, caring and infinitely knowledgeable on many varied and always interesting subjects.

Who other than Greenberg would have even brought the plight of the Downeses to our attention? And as for passe, you must not be reading his columns in depth. If this sounds like a fan letter, it is.

MARILYN HOLLAND WOODS Lakeview