Letters to the editor

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jun 23, 2009

Bill a clunker

Congress is considering a bill called "Cash for Clunkers." The story goes like this: If you trade in your older car or gas- guzzling SUV, the government will give you a voucher worth up to $4,500 to purchase a new car or SUV that is more fuel efficient.

This is supposed to boost new car sales and help the auto industry while also reducing global warming. But it's a big government idea with very startling, unintended consequences. Even the intended consequences are bad for taxpayers because this legislation will cost between $3 and $4 billion, at least.

One of the bill's unintended consequence is that it would further hurt the poor. That may seem counterintuitive, but the best way for a family to qualify for the program is for it to purchase an overpriced hybrid vehicle. If a family is struggling to put food on the table and keep its home, even a $4,500 voucher doesn't make such a car affordable. It is only a pittance towards the price of a new car. The only way for a low-income family to participate is to incur more debt.

If you own a clunker, you would be harmed by this legislation because it would remove old cars, and old car parts, from the market, making older cars more expensive to buy and fix.

Because the government plans to destroy the clunkers traded in, even if they are perfectly good vehicles, the supply of used cars will dwindle and prices of used and new cars will increase.

Global warming advocates and automakers don't see this as a problem, because they want to use the power of the state to force new car sales. But Americans should be wary.

QUENTIN MARTIN,Topeka

Study health plan

During a recent checkup, I asked my doctor for his opinion regarding the proposed government health plan. He answered with a personal illustration. His father-in-law is a healthy 82 but had a very bad left knee. He was healthy enough to endure the procedure which would replace it, and his insurance would cover it. He is now in rehabilitation, walking without a limp and pain free.

Under the government plan, doctors would receive a list of procedures the plan would cover. The procedure for his father-in- law would not be covered under the government's plan because of his age. He could, of course, go ahead with the procedure, but would have to pay for it out of pocket. Ask anyone from a country that has such a health plan and they will tell you stories about being on waiting lists, or even coming to the U.S. for a procedure that is not covered where they live.

I have no way to verify this, but I am inclined to believe my doctor before I invest my health to a bunch of politicians.

Ask your own doctor his or her opinion. Let's all be sure we understand exactly what is contained in this proposal before Congress passes the bill.

SKIP ELLIS,Topeka

Killer wasn't pro-life

Dorian Hadley's letter to the editor, published in The Topeka Capital-Journal on June 17, has some serious intellectual and parochial deficiencies. To say that a fetus is not a human person because it is not fully developed leads me to believe that the lame, deaf, blind and mentally incompetent are also not human persons. Ergo, it should be all right also to destroy them, especially if they do not benefit society and are a burden. We could have a super race.

Hadley is obviously a sensible person. Too many are today. Guided by their senses, they see rabbits as cute, rats not, yet both are rodents. Their belly controls their mind. The fetus at its earliest stages does not "look" like a person. That relative thinking supports racism. "He doesn't look like me. Go play with your own kind."

I have faith in the laws of physics and the other sciences. I also believe my alarm clock will operate tomorrow even though I have no logical proof. My faith in scientific knowledge is cautious. As I told my children, "It's what we currently know and believe, but that may change." Atom means "indivisible."

Half of his letter is directed at Christians and their belief in God. He suggests that the only reason why one would be pro-life is that it originates from their belief in God. He ignores atheists who are pro-life.

The man who killed Tiller was anti-abortion; he was not pro- life.

AL PEDERSEN,St. Marys

Don't fight Obama

Why are Republicans fighting President Obama as he works to cure our economic problems? Becaue Republicans have been bought by the very rich and do whatever their owners tell them to do.

It has been said that everyone is hurting in this economy. That's not true. The very rich are not hurting. They had it great during the 1930s and they have it great today.

This is a democracy, and voters decide who will govern. But too many are swayed by the Republican song about lower taxes and smaller government. They lowered taxes a lot for the very rich and a little bit for the rest of us. They also deregulated big business and moved more toward pure capitalism, which is what got us in the mess we are in today.

Capitalism is the best economic model, but it needs to be tempered with regulation. Russia has proved that pure socialism doesn't work, and we just proved that pure capitalism doesn't work.