Obama at heart still a community organizer
Army Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene was recently buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The two-star general is the highest-ranking officer killed in combat since Vietnam. Neither the president nor the vice president were present. Barack Obama was playing a round of golf at the Vineyard Golf Club with Valerie Jarrett's cousin, Cyrus Walker; the World Bank president and former president of Dartmouth College, Jim Kim; and former lobbyist and ambassador Ron Kirk. Joe Biden was in the middle of the third day of a weeklong vacation in the Hamptons, which followed a week in Wyoming, which was preceded by a week at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. While America has lost a two-star general, the commander-in-chief could not show the common decency to honor him with his presence. Yet, Obama sent three White House officials to the funeral of a black teenager, Michael Brown, killed in Ferguson, Mo. Obama, as president, is the commander-in-chief of the military, but he's still just a community organizer.
GARY HAYES, Ooltewah
Unions raise wages; didn't hurt Michigan
Your Sept. 1 story on Volkswagen and the union contained an indirect quote by Sen. Bob Corker that a union could increase confrontation and drive up wages. That was followed by a direct quote, "There's no question it would be negative for our state." It seems to me that for the average state resident, rising wages could be a good thing, and, in fact, a very good thing. And, I would suspect, it would be a good thing for most business owners, too, because more people would have more money to spend on their products. Your story also mentioned that critics of unions point to the downfall of Detroit. Well, as someone who lived in southeast Michigan for many years, I can say that unions contributed to the problem, but they were only a small part. The biggest problem was that auto company management kept designing and producing cars no one wanted to buy, and they were very slow to adapt to the real market.
BRIAN HAMILTON
Postal Deficits Are Bush's Fault
Clint Cooper's editorial claims the United States Postal Service's financial woes are because it's subjected to congressional authority. What a textbook display of intellectual dishonesty. Congressional authority is only detrimental when a Republican Congress and president are out to bankrupt the postal service to fit their anti-government and anti-union ideology. The seven years of losses he laments started the year after the 2006 Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act was passed and a year before Bush's recession. This act levied a $5.4-$5.8 billion dollar, 10-year liability to the USPS. No other entity (private, government or otherwise) is required to pre-fund its retirement fund for 75 years. This would cover employees who aren't even born, much less already employed by the USPS. I've never seen such love and affection for working people's pensions or benefits from conservatives in my lifetime. The deficits the USPS and our federal government are now running started courtesy of Republican-passed legislation like this postal act and Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Conservatives are "great" when it comes to the economy. In the past 100 years, they've blessed us with the Great Depression and the Great Recession.
JOHN MARK DAVIS, Ringgold, Ga.
Protest By Voting For Mary Headrick
Clay Bennett's "poverty exit" piece in the TFP (Sept. 5), paired with recent protests by poverty wage earners, brings up an important point in this election season. If you protest, vote! Protests mean little unless they are backed up at the ballot box. Don't let being underpaid mean being under-represented. In District 3, that means voting for Mary Headrick for the U.S. House of Representatives. She is on our side and has shown that in many ways over the years.
DICK MOREL, Signal Mountain