Give up politics. Every sensible, rational, capitalist, non-Democrat, in the world knows the answers to your twelve questions.

Why ask questions when you won't believe the answers?

T. H.

MIKE RESPONDS!

Dear T. H.

I notice YOU offer no answers -- they are just out there, I take it, blowin' in the wind. Too obvious to state!

Now then. Why should I give up politics? I'm just a citizen like yourself -- should I give up having an opinion? What kind of advice is that in a democracy, and what credentials entitle you to offer it?

If there are answers, let the press ask for them and let the candidate submit them, and let people judge. If the answers are good, people will generally cut some slack. Look what Clinton and Reagan got away with.

I guarantee, though -- the press will not ask for these answers, and the candidates will not submit them.

I am NOT a Democrat, just a midle-of-the-road independent. My view is that the System of big money is the problem. Of the original field of candidates, only McCain and Bradley and Keyes have my blessing. I have voted Republican less than half the time, but often enough to scotch any claim to being a Democrat.

I find most Democrats to be self-righteous and pandering. (Whereas Republicans are typically hot-tempered, or the opposite, manipulative and staged.) Both are big party responses to pulling the wool over voters' eyes -- which you seem to be in favor of.

My questions of Gore will be as cold as the question of Bush -- guarantee. My suspicion is that YOU are the one with the made-up mind, caricaturing me as a Democrat.

If you are a good reader, then you have the wit to see that I am challenging the press to ask better questions. If not, not. Sincerely,
Mike Finley

T. H. RESPONDS RIGHT BACK!

I have answers, but having only recently entered the political arena, I am dumbfounded by the destructive influence of the people, not big business on politics.

Parental lawsuits, teacher unions and "do-gooder" policies have been driving public education policy, not result or performance based policies. As a result we have average student education costs of around $8,000, while the average, middle of the road student gets only a $3,000 education. Why? In PA we bus kids to private schools ten miles outside of the district. For some kids in my district that is a 35 mile bus trip. Law suits have dictated this policy. Special needs lawsuits have forced public schools to educate students at any cost, regardless of potential outcome, until age 21. My district has several children where the cost is over $50,000 a year per student. Recent lawsuits say public schools must pay. Schools can't institute common sense restrictions on kids or expel students because the parents sue. An example is the inability of schools to regulate participation in extra-curricular activities if they violate school policy. PA courts recently ruled that you can't bar a student from the prom, even though she was in clear violation of policy. This often raises the costs for security because of kids that public schools are unable to effectively deal with problem kids. School hunt down free lunch eligible kids even though they are being well fed because it means more money to districts for reading programs. This is great, but some schools can pay for the reading teachers but they can't pay for a new roof. You can't divert money to needs not defined by federal law. Hopefully, you get the point.

Locally, planners are attempting to spend money on a train station and road upgrades in a residential location where none of the local residents want it. This is not driven by big business, its driven by the Sierra Club and the Clean Air act. Its a tit-for-tat situation; if the train station goes in, then the area gets lots of federal dollars for road improvements in other areas because they comply with Clean Air Act provisions. Never mind that its not likely to be used or that there is another location preferred by the residents. The Clean Air Act doesn't seem to care if the residents have to endure the additional bus noise and diesel fumes and car traffic.

Don't even get me started on the lost wasted, misdirected spending in social programs, and the "free" prescription drug voter pandering farce. PA has a lottery funded drug program for low income elderly. It works great and I am not forced to pay for my own drugs and everyone else's. The Feds should be concentrating on correcting medicare reimbursement rates so that people in my area can keep their medicare HMO's. Residents here are worth about $400 less per month than people in the People's Democratic Republic of Philadelphia, less than 50 miles away.

Well, back to the issues at hand. I appreciated your response to my e-mail. It made more sense than what I had gleaned form you column. I am disgruntled because few journalists offer anything new. Usually its a rehashing of anti-Republican issues. The formula is usually to find the noisiest, wackiest person with and agenda, and then screw well- intentioned public servants who can't defend themselves without being in violation of some funding contract clause. I would like a journalist or two to be ambitious enough to see if there may be merit to George W. Bush's proposal to give federal dollars to school to directly address local needs.

The convention was designed to break the cycle of negative sound bites journalism that the Democrats used to get Mr. Clinton elected. That is painting the picture that Republicans want to kill old folks and starve children. Had any real issues been brought up for discussion, the sound bites would killed any chance for a Republican president. All the American people would have heard about would be any inflammatory talk by impassioned extremists, they would never heard about the issues.

G.W. Bush doesn't have the most impressive credentials of a candidate. He is certainly not the best spoken. But he does have ideas. Give local people more control over their own money. Allow people an opportunity to improve their retirement through limited private investment so that they can afford prescription drugs. Are these hard concepts to grasp? In the best economy every, should he be rocking the economic boat just to please some journalists? The answer is no, he should, to some degree maintain the status quo. What can he improve without screwing things up? The image of the office of the President.

Obviously, I am not a journalist. I am attempting, through public service, and through letters to people who are journalists, to get people to start looking honestly at issues without a bias toward throw-money-at-it legislation or we've-got-to-pass-a-law-regardless-of-the-unintend ed-consequences mentality embraced by politicians and helped along by the press' response to non-business special interest groups.

Thanks again for your response. I'm glad that you experienced a bit of what conservatives go through everyday when journalist tell them that its wrong for them to believe as they do.

Sincerely,
T. H.
(A long winded and rambling reader of political journalists)