Exercise consistency
In recent weeks, Democratic leadership has been unanimous in identifying President Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy with the single aspect of separation of families. I am in complete agreement that this separation has been unconscionable. But if we are to identify practice (zero tolerance) with process ( family separation), then we should be consistent on another life issue.
Abortion is a practice; killing babies in the womb is the process. Consistency would suggest referring to the process rather than the practice. Have a suspicion that this particular exercise in consistency will be a long time coming.
STEPHEN HOFFMAN
Little Rock
Fiscal irresponsibility
Your editorial "The Womack budget" takes the cake. Your self-righteous Republican editorialists sneer at Democrats as they perpetuate the myth that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility while Democrats are the opposite.
Our $21 trillion national debt has been a totally bipartisan enterprise. Both parties have plenty of blame. Republicans certainly don't have less blame.
Remember that the last president to balance the budget was a Democrat. Clinton was followed by Bush, who turned our budget surpluses into seven years of growing deficits. He did this by pushing through a big budget-breaking tax cut that wasn't needed, then putting two costly wars on the national credit card.
But the biggest example of Republican foolishness was last year's tax bill, which was nothing but a massive redistribution of wealth upwards. That bill gave Berkshire Hathaway a $29 billion windfall. Warren Buffett didn't need or want that money. He's still complaining that his secretary is more taxed than he is. Just imagine what $29 billion could do for the pressing needs all across this country!
Big banks and businesses have reaped similar windfalls. These represent money diverted from the national treasury straight into the pockets of the super-wealthy. A few dollars were tossed to us further down the food chain, but that is being eaten up by inflation and a growing trade war launched by a foolish Republican president.
Add to all of this the huge unneeded increases in military spending and you have a picture that takes your breath away. The Republicans have set us on a course that will automatically increase our national debt by $1 trillion every year.
So, Republican editorialists, spare me your self-righteousness.
SANDY WYLIE
Bella Vista
It is only a direction
I think Mr. Kirby Shofner is just a little bit too sensitive. As much as I would like to think that it is, everything is not about me. Words have meaning that are unrelated to me and my life. Someone referring to "something going south" is referring to direction only--i.e., north, south, east or west. On a map north is up and south is down. People driving south have said they are going "down south." If you were driving north you might say you were going "up north."
No need to take it to mean anything other than what is is--a direction.
SALLY J. MAYS
Roland
Children deserve best
As the world watches in beautifully orchestrated unison, there is not a soul among us who does not rejoice for the joyous reunion of 12 precious Thai children, their coach, and their families as they emerge safely from the bowels of the cave. We are glued to our televisions, smartphones and sound systems as an amazing international team of experts come together to carefully and cautiously extract these children, the world's children, from darkness into the light of their known world.
On the other side of the same world, some 2,000 of the earth's children are torn from their families and segregated as animals because their parents crossed into the United States illegally. To date, countless children from these families are separated by thousands of miles within a system that touts the care they receive because they have food and shelter.
How do these scenarios compare? In both, families are separated from their children; in both, parents grieve and wait and pray for safe return of their most precious babies. Hope, faith, and love permeate the hearts of families in each of these circumstances, yet, somehow, the fate of children whose parents sought a better life for themselves is somehow forgotten.
When we fail our children, regardless of who gave birth to them or what color their skin is, or where they live, or even where they were born, then we fail ourselves. We place in our children hope, joy, dreams for a brighter future, and yearnings for a better world. Our children deserve our best efforts, period.
PATTY KOHLER
Conway
On those union dues
It seems like John Cooke is having a hissy fit because the Supreme Court ruled that you don't have to pay union dues if you don't want to. He then mentions the "obscure personal reason" for not wanting to pay dues.
Obscure means concealed, vague, mysterious, etc. The Republicans' reason for not wanting to pay dues is hardly obscure, and I think Mr. Cooke knows this but wants to conceal it. He conveniently seems to have forgotten to mention that most dues go toward supporting the Democratic Party. In 2008 (the time of Obama), the labor unions spent about $75 million in political donations, with about 90 percent going to the Democratic Party. This is why the Republicans are against paying dues. There is nothing vague or mysterious about this.
Mr. Cooke says he chooses to pay dues, and that's fine. What do you think Mr. Cooke is, a Democrat or a Republican?
DONNA DAUGHERTY
Gravel Ridge
Editorial on 07/11/2018