Learn how to research
I was very disappointed by the comments to the Tribune’s Jan. 22 “Sound Off” column asking about President Joe Biden’s accomplishments (or not). So many commenters are so uninformed.
Do they not even know what Biden’s infrastructure bill did for Idaho? The reconstruction of the Memorial Bridge in Lewiston was a benefit of that. Idaho received $2.2 billion for airports, road and bridges, clean water and expanded highspeed internet, while he created 14.6 million new jobs in the U.S.
But why should I do their research for them? They need to learn how to do their own before mouthing off.
Loretta Anderson
Asotin
No surprises here
Wouldn’t you know that the legislators who want to repeal Idaho’s expansion of Medicaid also want to further restrict the citizen initiative process through which that expansion became law? Repeal would deny health care to the more than 80,000 Idahoans who have benefited from the popular initiative financed mostly by the federal government.
And wouldn’t you know that many of the same legislators who say the state cannot afford the resulting growth of Medicaid want to start handing tax dollars to private schools? They say this unprecedented support for schools not operated or overseen by the state will be limited to $50 million — next year. Meanwhile, other states that have started such practices have seen their costs grow like wildfire in successive years as religious and other schools have cashed in at taxpayer expense.
And wouldn’t you know that instead of suggesting a way to pay for this new spending, the Legislature’s top dog, House Speaker Mike Moyle, proposes a cut in the income tax, and later, in the sales and property taxes too.
Finally, wouldn’t you know that voters, because the legislators behind these shenanigans are Republicans, will continue returning them to office?
Jim Fisher
Moscow
False leaps of logic
I read the column by Cindy Agidius in the Jan. 12 Tribune. I have known Cindy for some time now and she is an intelligent woman, but the column in question falls prey to two of the more common errors made by the right wing in trying to vainly shield their party from the effects of their current radicalism.
One such error lies under the heading of what I would call “comparative morality.” This results from an approach where, whenever you mention some outre behavior of Donald Trump or some other Republican luminary, then the right-wingers immediately start asking, “What about the Black Lives Matter riots?” ... . That is false equivalency and is the worst kind of muddy thinking ... .
The second error made by Cindy and other right-wing people is that they are so desperate to reach some sort of winning argument that ... they make gigantic, false leaps of “logic” to try to reach the conclusion they are seeking. This may work for the rank and file of their party, who can’t see through it, but it is not anything that is going to fool anyone trained in logic and discourse.
The fact is that the current “Republican” Party is not the party of your grandfather. I did not agree with those old-time Republicans on the issues, but at least you could see they were serious people who knew that, in order to be respected, they had to comply with the normal rules of political discourse.
Danny J. Radakovich
Lewiston
