Letter to the editor
Published: April 3, 2008

Editor:

In its stealth “newsletter” — actually a blog — the local Republican Party responded to my last letter to you by claiming to see no connection between the Bush administration’s weak dollar policy and the price of gasoline. They may find today’s national headline interesting: “Oil slumps as dollar strengthens.” In their zeal to protect Bush’s reputation, the minions of the GOP have found it necessary to pretend that the most fundamental laws of economics do not apply to Bush and his decisions.

In a similar vein, I read this morning where the same Mr. Bush plans to veto any bill that comes before him that deletes the subsidies you and I are giving the oil industry. Those worthies – all five of the major oil companies – who collectively pulled down $100 billion in profits last year, claim they “cannot compete against powerful international [unnamed] competitors without” those handouts.

May I suggest that it’s time they tried.  After all, you and I have been winging it without federal handouts for quite a while now.

As an aside, I see that Bush is all in favor of adding Russia’s neighbors, Ukraine and Georgia, to NATO.  I wonder how he would feel if Mexico and Canada decided to join a military alliance with Russia of which we were not members.

Rule of thumb: if Bush is for it, it must be a bad idea.

Frank Dixon
Criglersville