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Letters: Which party’s to blame for D.C.’s dysfunction?

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Re “A plague on both your parties,” Opinion, Nov. 3

Doyle McManus makes valid points regarding Americans’ disgust at both parties on a variety of issues.

With regard to the Affordable Care Act, there is nonstop coverage about the president’s past declarations that those happy with their insurance policies could keep them. You can debate the degree of deceit — that is, whether it was poorly chosen words or an outright lie.

What I don’t hear anyone talking about is how this could have affected the 2012 election.

I believe that if the administration had been more forcefully pressed about these promises, plenty of moderate Democrats, independents and more Republicans would have turned out to vote for Mitt Romney.

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Watching Romney on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, I couldn’t help but wonder whether many viewers were having voter’s remorse.

Terry Johnston

Newport Beach

McManus writes: “We’ve finally found an issue on which almost all Americans, right and left, agree: We hate having a federal government that creates problems instead of solving them.”

Well, then it’s up to that same electorate to do something about it.

In 2010, voters saddled the country with a radical right-wing House and more extremely conservative Republican governors. This aided and abetted the tortured gerrymandering that has all but guaranteed Republican control of the House for several more years.

From shutting down much of the government to threatening default on our debt, this is a byproduct of that midterm election.

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It’s easy for out-of-touch voters to blame both parties, but those of us who are well informed know better.

Bob Teigan

Santa Susana

What’s really the issue is that the news media have lost their ability to think critically. Now what you see is too many journalists and pundits parroting the same meme — for example, that Benghazi is a scandal, the Affordable Care Act is a failure and that both parties are guilty of excess.

The Affordable Care Act has really just begun. In six months, there will be thousands of citizens enjoying the benefits of the law.

Both parties are not guilty of excess. The Republicans were going to financially destabilize the country to defund a law they didn’t like.

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John Hopgood

Studio City

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