Hails News-Press Endorsement of Adam Ebbin
Editor,
I am writing the News-Press to commend you for endorsing the winning candidate in the Virginia 30th State Senate seat Democratic primary. By endorsing the winning candidate, Adam Ebbin, you showed once again that you are in touch with the desires of local voters.
By contrast, the vaunted and elitist Washington Post endorsed the presumed front-runner Rob Krupicka. Many local observers felt the election was Krupicka’s to lose. And he did indeed lose it despite having the endorsement of many big shots in the local Democratic machine.
As for the endorsement of the Washington Post, they have a history of misjudging the will of Northern Virginia voters. In 2006, the Post endorsed Jim Webb’s opponent in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary. Webb’s opponent was so obscure, I don’t even remember his name. They also had the gall to accuse Webb of trying to run for political office by relying on his Vietnam War hero record. How wrong. Webb went on to score one of the great upsets by knocking off George Allen in the November election.
And how about what happened in the 2009 Democratic primary for governor? The Post endorsed Creigh Deeds who hails from an obscure, rural park of western Virginia. It was a slap in the face to Northern Virginia Democrats and their two local candidates in Terry McAullife and Brian Moran. Deeds got the nomination but lost to Bob McDonnell in the election. And now, McDonnell is considered a leading candidate for the vice presidential spot on the 2012 Republican ticket.
The lesson to be learned is that the Falls Church News-Press is more in tune with Northern Virginia than the haughty Washington Post.
Greg Paspatis
Alexandria
Did Columnist Drink Some Kool-Aid, Himself?
Editor,
The most charitable thing I can write regarding Nicholas F. Benton’s column (FCNP Aug 25-31, 2011) is that he has undoubtedly been drinking the electric Kool-Aid he describes.
First, he attributes the use of the Army against the Bonus marchers to , “pro-fascist in the U. S.”….. Gee, my history says the President of the United States issued the order. Then he proceeds to describe the Iron Curtain as an invention of, “these people”… Again, my history says the first use of the term Iron Curtain was by Winston Churchill in a speech in Fulton, Mo. It will be news to all serious historians that Churchill was a fascist. The rest of his paragraph implies the Iron Curtain didn’t exist in reality as, ” the Soviet Union was very weak”. Is he so young he has never seen even pictures of the hundreds of miles of barbed wire, watchtowers, minefields and plowed strips that extended from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. As for the weakened Soviet Union, yes they were weak; so weak that they armed and equipped a North Korean Army far better than we did the South Korean Army, necessitating our intervention to save South Korea and they also maintained an Army exceeding 200 divisions, we had 10 in 1950 and they were greatly understrength. I’m glad the 50,000 dead from Korea didn’t know they died in an invention of fascists, and the thousands who fled and those who died trying to flee through the iron Curtain didn’t know they could have strolled through the “invention”.
Mr. Benton, please don’t drink the Kool-Aid before you write. It only discredits your writing. When you write about what can only be described as the evil testing of psychedelic drugs on our own population, don’t contaminate it with obvious untruths.
Henry J. Gordon
Falls Church
Some Regulations Prevent Small Business Growth
Editor,
I salute FCNP for running Joe Nocera’s column, “How Dems Hurt Jobs” (Aug. 25-31). I can attest from personal experience as an attorney representing many small businesses that a variety of regulations are indeed literally preventing small businesses from hiring.
A few 2011 examples I can personally attest to:
• An employer with 48 employees does not want to expand, because at 50 her company will be subject to the employer mandates under the new health care law.
• Another client has been awaiting approval for a bank loan to expand, but the bank has been unable to yet approve, because of certain regulations governing collateral value. About 10 more people would now be employed if the loan had been approved in the normal course.
• A motel client was set to borrow money to renovate and expand its facility, but when the costs for complying with Americans with Disability Act regulations were factored in, the operator determined the investment was uneconomic. The motel has been forced to shut down part of its operations and is up for sale. That’s two people laid off and three more not hired.
• A fourth developed a new product line, but had to delay ramping up, because of uncertainty over labeling requirements. Inquiry had to be made to the federal agency and we still do not have a clear answer. Chalk up delay for another 8 to 10 jobs, including two salespeople.
I’m just one lawyer and those are just a few stories involving over two dozen jobs, though by no means all the examples I can point to. Expand that nationally and the reality of regulatory impediments to job creation and concomitant economic slowdown becomes clearer.
I prefer to believe regulations are well-intentioned efforts to promote the general welfare, though I know from experience in state government that efforts are sometimes made to procure regulation designed to protect private interests at the expense of the general welfare.
Either way, what the Executive and Legislative branches at all levels of government need to start doing is consider the cost-benefit relationship for each requirement to be imposed.
Morris A. Nunes, Esq.
Falls Church
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