Many thanks to the Republican representatives who joined with Democrats to pass last-minute legislation to keep the government funded and refused to be coerced/extorted by Elon Musk and the president-elect into removing the debt ceiling for federal borrowing. An uncapped borrowing limit would have enabled the government to spend practically unchecked.
Those courageous Republicans have been threatened with being primaried if they didn’t bend their knees. Is this coercion what the new administration has in mind for every piece of legislation that they want to be passed? Or in the near term, for the approval of the chosen Cabinet nominees, no matter how poorly qualified the nominee may be?
I pray that all GOP House and Senate members will do what we elected them to do — look out for all the people of the United States.
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Vivian Bush, Ovilla
Re: “Dancers unite for symbolic show — Former DBDT members perform after labor dispute disrupted careers,” Friday Metro & Business story.
Elizabeth Myong’s story on the fired dancers’ benefit performance left me in tears. Dallas owes these brave, beautiful and courageous dancers a debt we could never repay.
Gene Lantz, Dallas
Re: “Mr. Kennedy deserves a fair hearing — His Cabinet nomination has been called a threat to our national health, yet despite all we spend, our country is getting sicker,” by Marvin H. Lett, Friday Letters.
I read with dismay Lett’s attempt to “sanewash” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s dodgy choice for Health and Human Services secretary. He takes pains to make the point that Kennedy is not anti-vaccine but instead anti-mandate.
Why don’t we examine him with his own words? From an AP news article just last month: “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said.
And another AP article last summer reported that Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” Does this sound like someone that would be a champion of vaccines? When he says he won’t take any vaccines away, do you believe him?
As a practicing physician, I have no love for big Pharma and share Lett’s concerns about the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval process, but I fail to see how approving someone who has been repeatedly anti-science for decades would even remotely have a chance at fixing these issues.
Bryan Allison, MD, Dallas
My husband and I are native Dallasites and were lucky enough to be part of the first national tests for the new polio vaccine conducted in 1954. We were in the second grade in the Park Cities. Although our parents, we learned later, thought this might be frightening, they were very willing to trust the science to eliminate the scourge of the dreadful disease that caused paralysis and death. It was a very scary time.
The idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services is so dangerous and backward thinking. Kennedy’s attorney, Aaron Siri, who is making the rounds of Congress with Kennedy, has actually petitioned the government to revoke the polio vaccine approval.
Are we to return to a time of rampant disease and fear? Our country has the most brilliant scientists in the world, and their work makes the lives of all the people on the globe better.
Gail B. Clark, University Park
Lett’s op-ed commits the same fallacy that led to Donald Trump’s election in 2016. A fallacy leveled at progressives for decades by conservatives who never took the time to listen to us: change for the sake of change.
Everyone can see our health care system is broken. Health care companies will gladly throw us to the wolves to increase quarterly profits by 0.1%. Capitalism gets in the way of medicine and science, and Americans face the consequences.
With such a grim reality, it can be tempting to look toward any person who promises “change” and think that means “change for the better.” Alas, no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse.
When Robert K. Kennedy Jr. railed against the pharmaceutical industry on progressive outlets, the pundits would ask if he supported single-payer health care or nationalizing pharma. If the companies are evil, shouldn’t we take away their power?
Kennedy always blubbered in response. He doesn’t question capitalism, he questions science. Throwing out the good stuff and keeping the bad stuff is a change, but it’s not an improvement.
Thomas Urech, Richardson
I watch the actions of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with interest. I’m an old man now, and in my career I’ve seen lots of people approach complex situations by saying: “This is simple. All you have to do is…” Pro tip: This is how you recognize a fool. It’s never “All you have to do.”
This is because complex situations are also dynamic. When you cut the beast, it screams. Where these people fail is not on move one but on moves two through 10. Usually, they’re gone by move three because they don’t like the accountability and they’ve gone back to something they understand.
Fixing the deficit is like losing weight. You didn’t get overweight in a day. You can’t get skinny in a day, either, and as there was pleasure in getting heavy, there will be pain in getting skinny.
I’ll be interested to see if the volunteer billionaires are still around for the pain.
William Carroll, Far North Dallas
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