In Response to Frank Nethken

This letter was written in response to a letter to the editor that appeared recently in the Times News written by Frank Nethken.

It is hard to respond to a reality that Frank Nethken lives in, clearly I can not change the man or his belief. But his strange reality is misinformed, and for this purpose I must try to straighten out the facts. He accuses "liberals" - get over the name calling - with creating the National Debt. Reality is more like this:

Pres. Carter's deficit when he left office was $64 billion. Ronald Reagan was elected on a platform of Supply Side Economics, otherwise known even by Republicans as "trickle down economics." In 1981, the House of Representatives, in a straight Republican vote, with support from conservative "bollweevil" Democrats passed Reagan's plan of sweeping tax breaks for the extremely wealthy. Many of these Southern Bollweevil Democrats are now Republicans, such as Sen. Phil Gramms of Texas, who was one of the biggest proponents of this risky scheme. The Republican controlled Senate quickly passed it, again on a Republican party line vote. Along with this massive tax break to the wealthy, the Congress passed Reagan's proposed increases in military spending. Republicans never flinch in spending our hard earned tax dollars on failed "Star Wars," Antiballistic Missile System, at the cost of $120 billion to Corporate Defense Contractors, or Corporate Welfare for their influential friends on Wallstreet, but accuse Democrats of wasteful spending on our environment, on education, and vital assistance to make sure our Seniors and Children are cared for. Nethken probably will not accept this reality, but if he wants to learn more he should read Reagan's Budget Chief, David Stockman's tell all book, on why he eventually resigned his post when he realized the magnitude of the fiscal imbalance he created with Supply Side Economics under Reagan's misguided leadership. George Bush, the Senior, appropriately called Supply Side economics, "Voodoo Economics", or others concerned with equity in our nation more appropriately titled it "trickle-on" economics.

The result of trickle-on economics was a quadrupling of our national debt to $5.4 trillion dollars in twelve short years under Reagan-Bush, and a massive increase in the concentration of wealth in our Nation. The facts are there Nethken, look it up. When George Bush, the Senior, finally left office, the budget deficits averaged $300 billion plus, for as far as the eye could see. Along comes Pres. Bill Clinton in 1992 promising to balance the budget, and orchestrated the single most significant vote to put our budget in balance, the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Without a single Republican vote, the bill raised revenues on the top two percent of the wage earners, and the bill put in strict budget caps and put our fiscal house on to a guide path towards a balanced budget, which was achieved six years later. Republicans at the time called it a risky scheme, and predicted dire consequences for our economy.

The Democrats under the leadership of Pres. Clinton have been far more effective in balancing our budget, and should be respected for their leadership which has lead to a robust National economy. The Democrats also appear resolved in spending most of our "projected" surplus on strengthening Medicare and paying off our National Debt, accumulated under Republican policies. Meanwhile Republicans continue to call for a repeat of the misguided policies of the 1980 Republican stewardship of our economy, and again want tax breaks for the fortunate few.

I know it is a hard reality to face Nethken, but Republican policy created the vast majority of Debt of our nation. Read it and weep, Frank.

 

In Response to the Article, "Do we really need another conversation about opening the mall to traffic - Duh."

I read with interest your position against opening the downtown mall to vehicular traffic. You made some valid points about the businesses needing to be more customer friendly, e.g. evening hours, niche products, better window displays, more promotions, etc. You also made some valid points about the nature of older downtowns not having changed over the years to meet new consumer needs. Those points however have little to do with the question of providing increased accessibility to the marketplace.

Your comparison to the single case of Hagerstown, MD as an example of a downtown that hasn't donewell even though it has flow-through traffic does not win the argument. It too has poor retail practices. Just think how much worse downtown Hagerstown would be if it too bricked up its main drag.

The argument still remains: can flow-through traffic be more beneficial han a closed-off mall, even if improved business practices are implemented? Have you ever traveled to Ellicott City, Annapolis, Bel Air, Westminster,or even nearby Frostburg on a Friday night? Virtually all of these accessible downtown put Cumberland to shame. These successful towns seem to fulfill your earlier main points necessary for running a good buisness, with the exception that they also allow for flow-through traffic.

I must agree that aestheically the downtown is ike a park, but face it. like a park, do you wnat wildlife to outnumber its human inhabitants? A block or two away tbere already is a very nice park, a $250 million endeavor called Canal Place. Do we really need another park down the street, this time consisting of mostly empty commercial buildings?

Don't you think that if closing the main commercial street to vehicular traffic were such a wonderful ideal it would have been replicated thousnds of times throughout the nation over the past thirty years? Instead it was a brave experin\ment of the 1970's that FAILED. It didn't work. Give it up already.

So before you raise up the victory flag for your argument, please consider this: Is the downtown made for pigeons, plants or people?If your answer is people, people drive cars and need accessibility to their markets. To accomplish this you need to open the mall to traffic. Please lower your flag to half-mast.

-Frank Clark, Cumberland

 

Freedom of Speech

In the past 6-8 months a significant group of citizens have come together to discuss growing concerns about the state of politics in our county. However, one of the obstacles in effecting change was the fact that there is an inordinate fear, throughout the area, of reprisal from certain politicians. It is a widely held belief that if a person dares to speak out on issues concerning politics that they will suffer retribution, whether it be to them personally or against their businesses.

This has got to stop! One of the rights that we all hold dearly in this country is freedom of speech, private citizens and politicians alike. And we think it is important that we protect this right at all costs. However, we also knew, realistically, that it would take a site such as this to empower people to speak up -at the same time providing them some level of protection from reprisal.

In the two short weeks that this site has been live it has experienced, to date, 9,594 hits. That tells us that people are seeking information. Agree or disagree with the information on the site, it really doesn't matter, just get involved. That is all that we ask. There is a proper venue for you to respond with your thoughts and ideas - through the Citizen's Exchange page. Please make every effort to provide constructive criticism or productive ideas. The purpose of the site is to give people, who would not otherwise have an opportunity, a chance to voice their opinions. Of course this will not make some politicians happy, but it could give them the opportunity to get in touch with what their voters are really thinking. And that can't be a bad thing.

This country has a long history of duking it out in the political arena. Politicians, of course, have to learn early on to be able to take the heat and hopefully become better politicians because of it. It would be better for them and the community if they focused their energies on addressing the issues instead of looking for a way to squelch them.

In closing, our message is, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the site." It is just a website, after all.

Citizens for Political Reform in Allegany County

 

I've not seen such "propaganda-esque" writing since the days of the Gadfly Informer.

As a former writer for a REAL national grass-roots organization, and as a current teacher and citizen in Allegany County, I'm a bit offended by your writings. You claim to be stating facts when you're actually doing nothing but spreading rumors and half-truths. In discussions, I'm sure it's fine to to do this...but with published materials, you'd do better to take the high road and give facts. You may be in love with the idea of school consolidation. School consolidation certainly is inevitable. But which schools close and how to implement a consolidation plan certainly are open to debate. I'm sure all of you in LaVale are very happy...especially since none of it happened in your neighborhood. But when a school such as Barton Elementary, which was the MODEL school in the county, closes down, we see clearly that the best interest of ALL citizens in the county were not served. Woodring, Thelen and Arnone heroes? Hardly.

- A Frostburg Citizen