Dear Editor,The average citizen cannot fully assess the implications of complex issues like health care, so we often use simpler situations to help us decide if we believe governmental claims about reducing costs, deficit neutrality, improving efficiencies, etc., for the more difficult issues.
One such example appeared in the Aug. 11 issue of The Wall Street Journal. The article described a plan of Congress to upgrade and add capacity to its fleet of airplanes, to the tune of $550 million, soon after it criticized corporations receiving taxpayer funds for using corporate jets.
Aside from the hypocrisy, the statistics and examples in the article just made my blood boil!
Last year our elected officials spent $13 million traveling the world, a tenfold increase since 1995!
The travel costs are covered by an unlimited fund created by a three-decade-old law.
When our government acts in such a financially irresponsible way on “small” issues, how can we believe they will act any differently on more complex issues?
-W. Frank Edwards
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