Things must change

Yes! Truth won! President Obama's values of truth and integrity won! I can breathe again! But how can we go through another election, starting again in three years!

Things must change:

First, the Supreme Court's insane ruling that "corporations are people" made election spending (estimated $6 billion) absurd, and drove all of us crazy! This must be overturned.

Second, the most desperate change, however, concerns lying. Those who lie in their campaign advertisements should be tried for betrayal of trust. Many say, "but this is free speech." Baloney! Free speech means I can write this letter telling what I believe. It doesn't mean I can tell lies, knowing they are lies, yet keep telling them until my followers hold them as truth. That is not free speech. It is downright lying, and it is ripping apart our nation. We discipline our children for lying, then turn around and lie in what should be the most important show of truth and honesty: a run for public office!

Third, we need to start paying attention! What is most disturbing is that so many Americans would have elected a man and his party who seem nearly void of truth and integrity. How could this happen if people did their own thinking, instead of being subject to the dictatorship of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove and the money of the Koch Brothers, etc.

We need to change this. We must stop wasting the money and time this has cost our nation and our leaders.

— MaryCarol Nelson, Leavenworth

Winners and taxes

For those members of Congress who still stand firmly against any tax increase on those making over $250,000, I think they must now ask themselves a basic question: "Who just won election as president of the United States: Barack Obama or Grover Norquist?"

Is their loyalty to the latter more important than their loyalty to their constituents?

— James A. Young, Seattle

Solving our economic problems

I'm disappointed in Paul Krugman ["The President should stand his ground and reject the GOP's economic blackmail,"Opinion, Nov. 11] asking our president to focus on "feel good" political tactics of raising tax rates and not our goal, which should be to avert the fiscal cliff and establish financial stability.

This goal would be better met by following the Simpson-Bowles plan to revamp the tax code, which would increase the tax burden of the wealthy without raising rates. The losers would be the tax accountants who cost our citizens hundreds of billions of dollars and endless frustration per year, not to mention tax cheats. The winners would be the free market that will then allocate precious capital to its best purpose.

That may not feel good to Krugman, who focuses on winners and losers vs. trying to have all of us winners, but would likely make sense to those trying to solve our economic problems.

— Dan Sjolseth, Browns Point


The role of government

I generally find Danny Westneat’s columns thoughtful, which is why I was so disappointed in his Sunday column where he engages in the intellectual laziness that Democrats believe government “ought to do more.” [“GOP blew chance to win voters,” NWSunday, Nov. 11.]

In our own state, did Jay Inslee run to expand government — or apply lean-management techniques to make government more effective? And, rhetoric aside, the Affordable Care Act is not an expansion of government control of health care — it expands access to the private health-care insurance market.

As a citizen, I hope Republicans will get the message of the election and cooperate in fine-tuning the policies they wouldn’t themselves have made — that’s the role you get to play when you lose an election.

But there is a Democratic part of me that hopes Republicans continue what Westneat describes as their “political suicide.”

– Mike Kelly, Bainbridge Island

Obama’s place in history

Why historians will consider Barack Obama as one of our greatest presidents:

Lincoln freed the black slaves, but tens of thousands of countrymen were killed in the process.

Obama freed all working “slaves” (of every skin color) who live in fear, because of a pre-existing medical condition.

Obamacare freed everyone from being a slave to their current job! Free to tell a bad boss to take this job and shove it. Free to look for a better job. Free to start their own business. And not even a single shot was fired!

— Rick L. Ornstein, Richland