Letters to the Editor
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‘Salvation by Taxation’
Regarding J. Bradford DeLong’s piece, “Salvation by Taxation,” why waste time arguing against environmental extremism when you can present such a pure example of it to your readers for their own analysis [Oped, “Salvation by Taxation,” January 3, 2007]? Everyone knows that global warming will rapidly destroy the planet if something isn’t done today. Everyone also knew 30 years ago that global cooling would likely have New York buried under a glacier by the year 2000. What, pray tell, is the solution to global warming? Taxes, of course. Taxes, as the Democrats are so fond of saying, on the rich? Will we encourage Congress to pass laws seizing the properties of the John Kerrys, Ted Kennedys, and Barbra Streisands of the nation? Us regular folks will carry the load in in the form of gasoline taxes, which consume a much greater percentage of our assets than those of the aforementioned very-very-very rich.
WALTER KESTER
Bogota, N.J.
‘Gerald Ford’
In an era when the press has been known to showcase countless points of view when it comes to someone’s life and legacy, it’s rare to have such uniform agreement on someone’s accomplishments as now seems to be the case with President Ford [Editorial, “Gerald Ford,” December 28, 2006]. Even rarer though, is that nearly everything said about him seems to be true. By any objective measure, he did allow the nation to move on, at a time when it was far more common to be divisive. He was a healer for a nation that needed healing, and his honesty and integrity provided a refreshing change from the culture of corruption so prevalent in the Nixon-Agnew administration. The lesson that I think we can best learn from Ford is the importance of putting civility above politics. It’s hard to imagine Senator Kerry and President Bush becoming the best of friends in the near or distant future, but that’s exactly what occurred with Ford and his old rival, President Carter. Ford was a man who could laugh at those who poked fun at him, befriend those who would attack him, and embrace a nation prepared to scorn him. Ford will be missed.
FRANK MORANO
Producer “Curtis and Kuby Show”
Staten Island, N.Y.
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