To the editor:
The author Eric Hartman stated that in 40-plus years, Republicans have not passed one piece of legislation that benefits anyone other than corporations and the wealthy. (Hartman offered a prize to anyone who could name one—he has found no winners.)
When you couple that fact with the Republicans inability to tell the truth, especially when they are being questioned by senators during their confirmation hearings, why are they considered qualified to head an agency, fill a seat in Congress, or wear a robe on the Supreme Court? (During those hearings, maybe they should be hooked up to a lie detector that sends out a loud buzzer when they are telling lies.)
As for qualifications, based on the CCC (clown car cabinet), Congress should enact minimum standards to lead a government agency or department. The head of Health and Human Services for example need not have a medical degree, but unlike Robert Kennedy Jr., the post should be filled with someone with a background in science, not far-out fringe theories that threaten the nation’s health and well-being.
The people in the federal bureaucracy should have confidence in those assigned to lead them. Appointments should not be political. Trump’s CCC was chosen the same way a president thanks those who supported his election by giving them embassy posts. Trump’s criteria for his cabinet picks: You look good on TV, you never criticize anything Trump says, and you never say that the 2020 election was fair. The rest is on the job training.
In less than six months, Trump’s erratic behavior has caused the entire world to feel uneasy. His tariff folly is causing countries to switch trading partners by not purchasing goods made in America while avoiding travel to the U.S., all causing calamity, forcing businesses here to cut back or close down. No matter how beneficial they may be for the country, Trump tries to cancel programs that were formulated by Obama and Biden.
Trump’s claims that there are millions of illegal undocumented criminals who are here committing crimes is false. Rather than having a plan to fix this by creating a path to citizenship, Republicans are sitting back allowing the Trump/Miller cruelty campaign to continue unabashed, while our workforce is being depleted and we are losing the tax revenue those people provide.
If someone has entered this country illegally 20, 30, or 40 years ago, has never committed a crime, has paid taxes, etc., Congress should come up with a plan to get past this. Republicans came up with a way to punish these people. Now they should figure out a way to remove this blemish on who we are as a nation—a nation which was formed by immigrants, many who came here illegally. Oops! Trump eliminated that fact from our history books.
Frank Gunsberg
Great Barrington
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