Letters To The Editor

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Government for sale, with media help

Much is being said about illegal campaign donations affecting U.S. elections. Where have we Americans gone wrong? Will the root of all evil dominate the American political landscape?

Revelations being told each day in the Senate hearings on illegal foreign campaign donations aren’t new. I first became aware of this issue watching “Larry King Live,” when King had Dr. Pat Choate on following the vice presidential debates.

Choate told us that Common Cause had the goods on illegal foreign donations going to the Democratic National Committee. He also spoke of deals being cut between prominent Republicans and those interested in seeing high subsidies on sugar in Florida. Those who wanted expensive sugar would benefit if they could control the corn syrup market.

It seems that corruption exists at every level in our government. Politicians and policy are commonly being bought and sold to the highest bidder.

The American media simply swept this issue, and those who brought it forward, under the rug - a tall order, especially when two of the messengers, Ross Perot and Dr. Pat Choate - happened to be running for president and vice president. Is it any wonder why Bob Dole, Bill Clinton and our national media failed to respond to these allegations during the elections? Perhaps we now see why they so quickly slammed the door on the Reform Party’s participation in the debates.

Perhaps Clinton, Dole and the media stood to lose big money if true campaign reform ever became an issue in American politics. Steve Thompson Reform Party of Washington state, Spokane

Senate hearings get short shrift

Thank heavens for C-SPAN!

It seems there is neglect by both the print and the electronic news media to give the public complete news coverage. My concern is the lack of attention to the Senate campaign finance hearings now going on.

It’s clear there’s a great deal of stonewalling by some of the Senate committee members, witnesses and our Department of Justice. Without good reason, they are evading the matter of illegal campaign financing. Apparently, the corruption through campaign financing of our federal government has become rampant.

It appears there is a conflict of interest involving the Justice Department and our federal administration. For that reason, the office of attorney general should be made an elective position and thus become truly responsible for seeing to it the legal professionals of the Justice Department and FBI people do their jobs honestly.

Corruption in our trade policies is another matter that should give us great concern with truth and fact. Eugene L. Johnson Osburn, Idaho

President Hayes misquoted

In his 1877 inaugural address, President Rutherford B. Hayes (a Republican) did not say, “He serves his country best who serves his party best.” Jon J. Tuning Spokane

Nethercutt’s shortsightedness appalling

I was appalled to read (July 27) that Rep. George Nethercutt voted no in Congress to continue allowing 10 percent of funding in vocational funds to be used to train displaced homemakers, single pregnant women and single women with children.

Over the past years, this funding has allowed hundreds of women in Nethercutt’s own district to get the training necessary to find good jobs and become taxpaying citizens. How shortsighted can he be? Jan L. Polek Spokane

Cut or eliminate taxes for nonwealthy

Tax cuts should go the the wealthy, according to John A. Peterson (“Tax cut plans puny, at best,” Letters, July 24), because “the poor pay almost no taxes.”

Try telling that to those taxpaying folks who struggle to earn a basic living on $20,000 to $30,000 a year.

Let’s really increase our economic growth by reducing taxes for our middle class, thereby increasing the purchasing power of the people. While we’re at it, let’s eliminate taxes on the poor.

To set the record straight, the “record federal taxes” took 20.4 percent of the nation’s economy in 1995, compared to 20.3 percent in 1969, under Richard Nixon, and 20.2 percent in 1981 under Ronald Reagan.

Also, federal taxes on businesses have steadily declined from 6.9 percent in 1959 to 3.9 percent in 1995. Richard E. McInerney Spokane

PARENTING

Rosemond’s advice is right-on

In her July 26 Your Turn column, Kathy Brainard asks that Dr. John Rosemond’s parenting column be discontinued. We hope you will not do this. We have raised eight children and found Rosemond’s advice about parenting to be right-on.

Brainard has two children, ages 8 and 2. Parents of young children such as hers are by default in the center of their children’s world. It’s difficult for parents of young children to realize that the time comes when the perspectives and views of the parents can be, and often are, discarded by the children at the whim of rather dubious peers.

Until a person has piloted the ship of parenthood through the rocky shoals of the teenage years, the person may not be in a position to realize the wisdom of Rosemond’s advice. We have found Rosemond’s advice to be both pertinent and reliable. We hope you will carry his column for many years to come. A. Chris Olson, M.D. and Heidi H. Olson Spokane

Check results before prescribing

Kathy Brainard (Your Turn, July 26), shows herself as intolerant and judgmental. She says she wants to see John Rosemond’s column “removed from the paper.” Disagreement is acceptable, censorship is not.

Children of caring parents have been raised for many centuries with his methods, which are demonstrably effective. Brainard is premature. Her children are still very young. She should wait until they are adults to see how effective her methods really are.

One of my policies in my parenting was: “I owe it to my children to do what I can to make them people that other people want around - including me.” It worked beautifully. We used physical punishment very rarely. But because it was never ruled out, it was an effective deterrent.

Sometimes, right behavior can only be taught by making wrong behavior hurt in some way. The idea of reasoning with an unreasoning child is ludicrous. Loving lessons are always the method of choice, but sometimes, other methods are necessary.

Loving parents must create a home with structure - set mealtimes where the family sits down together and set bedtimes to make sure their sleep habits are healthy. Undisciplined children create terrible problems for teachers who have to create structure in order to teach. The world of work doesn’t accomodate the undisciplined, either.

Dr. Rosemond teaches that the health of the marriage relationship should be of primary concern. If the marriage is broken through neglect everyone is damaged, especially the children. I stayed at home to give my children my best energies, but I had a life apart from them. If I had made them the center of my universe, the empty-nest syndrome would have been unbearable. Marlene B. Olson Spokane

Welcome relief from psychobabble

My husband and I like Dr. John Rosemond’s column. He is a voice of adult reason and parental responsibility.

Many children are being raised with no conscience or sense of responsibility for their actions.

A visit to an elementary school classroom will show children who are the center of their parents’ universe: children with no respect for each other or for authority, who disrupt the teaching/learning process because they are used to doing what they want when they want.

Dr. Rosemond advocates rules and guidelines for children, with clear consequences for inappropriate behavior. Children need for their parents to provide structure and boundaries; they are incapable of setting them for themselves.

He also highlights a healthy mother-father relationship. If your child is the center of your universe, what do you do when that child grows up and leaves home? Do you still have a marriage? I doubt it.

I applaud Rosemond and The Spokesman-Review for publishing a column that goes against the psychobabble of the past 20 years. Catherine Y. Smith Spokane