Opinion: In Friday’s Letters to the editor
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Letters to the editor is already receiving responses to the lead letter that ran on today’s page. David Coffin, of Los Angeles, questions the infrastructure projects in the president’s stimulus program and wonders how it will really put Americans to work:
This article’s subhead shouts, ‘Unlike the marvels of FDR’s New Deal, the stimulus is more about traffic, sewers and school repairs.’ Grand projects or not, President Obama’s stimulus plan seems to have missed the mark by a wide margin. How many of those people losing their jobs at Mervyns, Circuit City, Starbucks or even Lehman Bros. can put on a hard hat and find jobs repairing schools, building bridges or replacing aging sewers? Very, very few, I suspect.
But that misses the point, many of you say. This e-mail, received this morning from Doris Dent in Studio City, sums up the counterargument:
How short-sighted some Times readers are. A letter writer wonders how infrastructure jobs will put people who work at places like Starbucks, Circuit City, Mervyns and even Lehman Brothers back to work. These businesses depend on people who have money to spend. People who have jobs have money to spend. Put more people to work and watch our economy improve.
Back to today’s page, readers also comment on Barack Obama and Bobby Jindal’s performances on Tuesday night, on a recent court decision on autism, and on the contested election for Los Angeles City Council in district five.