Letters to the editor

McCain's fiscal plan and faith

Re "Contrarian candidate," editorial, April 26

You applaud John McCain for not pandering to ordinary people but telling them hard truths about jobs and retraining. But McCain's economic plan is still based on large tax cuts, mostly for big corporations. Why is it that promising help to ordinary people is pandering but giving aid to corporations is serious economic policy?

Perhaps you should remind McCain that this is a double standard. It's time for him to tell the big players that they too need to adapt to the changing economy and that they too should stop counting on Washington to get them out of trouble.

As for the people who have lost their jobs, they don't need to be told. They figured out a long time ago that their jobs are not coming back, and they are retraining every chance they get. But Wal-Mart jobs don't bring a lot of bread to the table.

Perhaps it's McCain who needs some retraining on the realities of the global economy.

Jean Lecuyer

Los Angeles



In your editorial, you characterize McCain as boldly preaching an unpopular message, but it's the same old, tired, free-market deregulation dogma.

There's nothing contrarian about it -- it's the Bush line, which has put America in the terrible spot we're in today.

Won't you begin to assess this guy for what he really is? He's no maverick; he's a throwback, and more of the same poison that's been killing America (and Americans, and Iraqis) for seven years.

Fred Sokolow

Santa Monica



According to McCain, government can't create good and lasting jobs in the private sector.

All of the Internet, which now represents a significant factor in our economy, is traceable to the development of the ARPAnet by the Department of Defense. Most of the research that underpins drug development -- the part that is the most risky and least predictable -- is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Siegfried Othmer

Woodland Hills



Since when is realizing a trade policy has failed and saying so labeled "pandering"?

Thank goodness a few politicians, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, see that these policies have enriched corporations and a few individuals while devastating middle-class America and accelerating global warming.

Shouldn't we question McCain's support of globalization that enables human rights abuses, substandard wages, oppressive work conditions and total disregard to the environment?

Obama and Clinton are not pandering. Like good leaders, they are admitting that past policies haven't worked and are suggesting a different course.

Chris Wolfe

Studio City



Re "McCain doesn't put his faith out front," April 26

It appears, to his credit, that McCain has tried to diplomatically sidestep repeated questions about his specific religious beliefs and how he would or wouldn't apply them as president.

Nowhere in this front-page story is there any mention of one minor detail: the U.S. Constitution's Article VI, Section 3, which forbids any religious test for public office.

Am I the only one who sees danger in this constant badgering of all the candidates by religious zealots who want to establish an American version of a Taliban-style society?

Mark OConnell

Irvine



How is it possible that The Times devoted an entire story to McCain's faith without once mentioning Texas evangelist John Hagee?

Not a day passes without Obama being tarred by his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, yet McCain gets a free pass on a televangelist who believes that the Catholic Church is the "the great whore," that Jews are to blame for their own suffering and that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment against the people of New Orleans.

Obama at least had the decency to renounce his former pastor's offensive diatribes. McCain unapologetically continues to embrace Hagee and his hateful messages.

Edward Brand

Valencia



I was a year behind Johnny McCain in junior high and at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va. Attendance at all the services mentioned in Saturday's article on his faith were compulsory at that Episcopal boarding school.

Part of the school's honor code was a provision that one was never to create a false impression. I hope that he didn't give The Times' reporter the impression that his attending those services was a matter of choice.

Ted Mollegen

Glastonbury, Conn.

The traffic mess takes its toll

Re "Diamond lanes for the rich," April 26

Tim Rutten says the right words but reaches a false conclusion. Freeway lanes are a precious resource. Good economics requires scarce resources to be rationed.

When a motorist crowds his vehicle into a congested stream of traffic, he delays every other vehicle on that road just as they delay him. Why shouldn't he (and others) pay for this imposition?

This is what congestion pricing is all about. It is fair and equitable. Also, it provides exactly the revenue needed to provide an optimum number of lanes. If people wish to save on housing costs by moving to Phelan and driving to work in Arcadia at peak times, they should pay the cost it imposes on the rest of us.

John Harding

Palm Springs



Rutten raises a good point about the toll lanes proposed by the MTA. Business owners and residents raise good points about the conversion of Olympic and Pico to one-way streets. Cheviot Hills residents raise good points about the Exposition rail line through their neighborhood. Others raise good points about the efficacy and the enormous expense of a subway to the sea.

The problem is that we will never build a mass-transit system, which we so desperately need as traffic moves toward perpetual gridlock, unless we as a region make tough decisions -- decisions that will inevitably have winners and losers.

No transit plan will ever be proposed that won't inconvenience and, in some cases, severely affect motorists, neighborhoods and business districts. It is impossible to build the transit system the region needs without tremendous sacrifice that will be distributed differentially.

Rutten is a terrific columnist with whom I often agree, but here he pushes us away from real solutions to our traffic mess. Perhaps traffic still isn't bad enough, and commutes are not long enough, for us to really consider making tough choices and sacrifices.

Jeffrey Prang

West Hollywood

The writer is the mayor of West Hollywood.



Re "MTA votes to levy toll on some carpool lanes," April 25

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa calls charging L.A. residents more fees and taxes (this time in the form of freeway tolls) "a great opportunity to think outside the box."

Mayor, go back to thinking inside the box. Please.

Jon Konjoyan

Toluca Lake



Regarding toll lanes on the 10 and 210 freeways: Way to go, MTA! I can afford it, and can't wait to go flying by all the creeping peons.

Mike Kvammen

South Pasadena

A painful story about marijuana

Re "Marijuana in the medicine chest," column, April 26

The saddest part about Sandy Banks' column is that she flushed the medication down the toilet and she still lives in pain. By learning to use medical marijuana properly, she would probably find a huge decrease in her arthritis symptoms.

As a registered nurse who has worked with the terminally ill and with patients facing potentially fatal diseases and therapies, I've seen that medical marijuana often means the difference between living and starving to death, or the difference between extreme pain and greatly reduced or no pain.

It is absurd that one would choose to live in pain, but even more absurd that our federal government would force an individual to do so.

Jeffery P. Segall

Long Beach



Banks' column was an interesting read. However, Banks is confused about federal marijuana laws. After buying and possessing a small amount, she decides not to smoke it because, in her words, "the feds don't recognize California's medical marijuana law [and] I don't want federal agents knocking on my door."

Her concern is misplaced. There is no federal law that prohibits using marijuana. The law prohibits possession. Therefore, Banks already violated the federal law and admits it in writing.

She would have been better off smoking her dope. It likely would have given her just enough paranoia to stop her from exposing herself to the very knock on the door she is so worried about.

Robert Constant

Cebu City, Philippines