National Debt

It is amazing how differently different people see things. I suspect much of these differences boil down to simply which news broadcasts and talk show hosts we tune to. If only we could have news stations like the BBC, which believe it or not, actually broadcasts news. We could then take the facts that are reported as the basis for making up our own minds. Instead, we have "facts" that are manufactured by people from either the extreme left or right, which are then played full strength over and over.

If the Bowles-Simpson commission deficit reduction plan is dead, somebody evidently forgot to tell Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Their proposal to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade fell one vote short of the majority needed to force congressional action, and President Barack Obama, though saying nice things about the effort, didn't pick up the plan and sell it to the American people. But now, nearly two years later and on the eve of a presidential election, the framework Messrs.

I agree with Howard Bluth's frustrations over the obscene inequalities of wages, unemployment remedies, the continuous-without-break money chase, the influence of money in politics, etc., but I differ with his remedy of not exercising his franchise, and especially the suggestion to vote for a third party candidate to express one's disgust with the status quo ("Voting is an exercise in futility," Oct. 18). Enough people did that in the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and that resulted in eight years of the Bush administration, a huge escalation of the national debt, a greater disparity between the rich and the poor, and a totally fabricated reason for a protracted war in Iraq!

Regarding your recent editorial on the vice-presidential debate, I cannot understand why you fault former governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan for being vague on issues such as taxes, entitlements and foreign policy while praising the Obama campaign's clarity on those topics ("Biden connects," Oct. 13). What clarity? What is the Obama-Biden plan for dealing with the growing national debt? Under President Obama, the debt has been growing more than a trillion dollars a year, and neither he nor Vice President Joe Biden has proposed a way to get it under control.

As a nonviolent activist, I was really disappointed to see the op-ed by Clayola Brown ("Sequestration would destroy U.S. economy," Aug. 27). What astonished me is that it was written by the president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. Surely, all progressive activists greatly respect the work of A. Philip Randolph, a legendary organizer and activist. However, the current president of his institute wrote this: "Sequestration cuts in the defense budget would be especially devastating to the economy because of the aerospace sector's importance to local economies across America.

In his speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Sen. John McCain scolded President Obama for wanting to pull out of Afghanistan, for not going to war with Iran and Syria, and for not projecting American military might around the world more aggressively. All this as the GOP ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are promising to seriously cut taxes. This is the very same recipe followed by former President George W. Bush - start wars, increase military spending, and cut taxes.

Maryland politics is like a badly dubbed movie where actors' mouths move out of sync with the sound. Big debates are happening in the nation about big issues, including what it means to be an American and how to pay for our way of life. President Barack Obama ignited a firestorm in the media and in homes around the country last month when he said, "you didn't build that," giving credit to government for entrepreneurs' success. Voters in San Diego and San Jose, Calif. dramatically slashed previously sacrosanct government employee pensions by overwhelming margins in June to help keep their cities solvent.

President Barack Obama said over the weekend at a Virginia campaign speech that private businesses are successful largely because of the government's support. This statement is absolutely ridiculous. It's pretty clear that President Obama has never owned a business. I am a small business owner, and I took a major risk starting my company three years ago. I didn't rely on any bank loans, as I financed the start-up costs on my own. It required a tremendous amount of personal sacrifice, hard work and sleepless nights to get my business off the ground.

Those cannibals who recently turned up in Miami and Baltimore aren't the only people eating their own. Following President Barack Obama's 54-minute snoozer of a speech in Ohio last week, even his "friends" are beginning to feed on him. In 2008, David Brooks of The New York Times played the sycophant when he admired the crease in Mr. Obama's pants and concluded that it was a sign he would be "a very good president. " Last Thursday, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post wrote a scathing column, the headline of which suggests the media worm may have begun to turn: "Skip the falsehoods, Mr. President, and give us a plan.

It was recently reported thatExxon Mobil Corp.earned $825 billion in revenue in 2011. Think about that for a moment. That is nearly one trillion dollars in just one year, made largely on the backs of hard-working Americans forced to pay $4 per gallon at the pump. And where is all this money going? No doubt to pay for fat executive bonuses and to bribe corrupt members of Congress to continue doing the bidding of the oil industry. Clearly, a change is in order, and with that in mind I propose the following: Since we are now in the business of invading countries in order to steal their oil (under the guise of a war on terror)