Letters to the editor

OPINION:

Immigration enforcement works

The article “Obama scoffs at deportations” (Nation, Wednesday) about Sen. Barack Obama stumping in Pennsylvania, and his response to the audience’s demand that illegal immigrants be addressed, shows how poorly Democrats and liberals understand the nature of cause and effect as it relates to illegal immigration. Mr. Obama said that it is impractical to round them all up for deportation; instead he tried to make the case for granting the illegals citizenship status.

Prince William County, Va., as a case in point, shows what happens when you make policy changes. Illegals there have left in large numbers for either other jurisdictions or left the country entirely. In this case, the illegals are packing up themselves and leaving because the nature of the legislation makes it so economically uncomfortable that mass deportation and its associated problems are not even a possibility. This same cause and effect will work nationally, too.

Either Mr. Obama and the Democrats are ignorant of this or they are hoping to get these illegals made into legal citizens to garner them as a Democratic voting block. Either situation speaks poorly of them and their party.

NORMAN HENDRICKSON

Bowie, Md.

Paying for defense spending

In his Commentary article “Defense spending beacons” (Tuesday), John Guardiano joined a rising chorus of conservative voices calling for the maintenance of defense spending at levels of about $600 billion per year or 4 percent of GDP for the indefinite future. I disagree with this approach to protecting the American people.

The 4 percent figure is rapidly being transformed into a “magic number” inside the Washington beltway. It was first stated by Adm. Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A magic number, as George Miller famously told us, is necessary when the human mind cannot deal with complexity. Adm. Mullen tempts us to avoid actually managing this enormous level of spending. After all, it is money that belongs to the people. Dealing with defense spending by the use of “magic numbers” is a big-government approach that conservatives have spent decades trying to stop.

A $600 billion budget is a very expensive proposition. It is nearly half the income tax we pay every year. We have legitimate global interests, but the first job of government is the protection of the American people. Considering the Pentagon budget added not one ounce of deterrence against the greatest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, I suggest protection for America might begin elsewhere.

Our first line of defense against the immediate threats in the world lies with our missile-defense programs and with our other border security forces: the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the FBI and others agencies. If these and other agencies have shortcomings, they won’t be fixed in the Pentagon budget. Likewise, the American people are well served by a set of effective intelligence services. Together these programs and agencies receive budgets not much more than $100 billion per year. Let me offer these as the first priority for the eventual peace dividend to emerge from a free and secure Iraq.

Relative to Mr. Guardiano and others, this alternative represents an equally valid and equally conservative national-security agenda. It is more in line with our first policy responsibility: the safety of the American people.

DAN CUDA

North Potomac

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In his article, “Defense spending beacons,” John Guardiano acknowledged, “the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined.” Then he maintained, “America needs to spend much more on defense.” Unfortunately, he did not explain how this increased defense spending is to be paid for. If we are not willing to raise taxes, we will need to borrow more money from Communist China. How will that enhance the national defense?

Twenty-eight years after the election of Ronald Reagan and a Republican Senate, and eight years after the election of President Bush with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, it is time for the GOP to stop pretending that the next round of tax cuts will generate enough economic growth to pay off the national debt. It is also time to stop pretending that it is possible to cut domestic spending. It is not possible because the majority of voters, including at least a large minority to Republican voters, do not want domestic spending to be cut. They may be in favor of less government “in principle.” But in fact, they will fight to defend programs that they know benefit them.

JOHN ENGELMAN

Wilmington, Del.

A ’Dream Act’ for inner cities

As the editorial “Accounting for abysmally few graduates” (Wednesday) noted, the recently released data on urban-area dropout rates highlight once again the abysmal condition of our national educational system. Recent attention, however, has also been focused on versions of the Dream Act, which permits illegal-alien students to pay lower in-state tuition rates.

Dream Act advocates argue that children, brought into this country when they were young, should not be deprived of college because of their parents’ immigration status. How about a Dream Act for inner cities? Children born into urban areas should not be deprived of access to high-school graduation because of their parents’ residential status. Clearly, as Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint argue in “Come on People,” this crisis requires more than changing the measurement of “dropouts,” adding money or changing one’s residence. Our lawmakers need to focus their attention on a bolder revamping of our K-12 educational system and less on the extension of lower college tuition rates to select groups.

KATHLEEN C.

SCHWARTZMAN

Associate Professor

Department of Sociology

University of Arizona

Tucson

Schooled

The California appellate court that ruled against home-schooling went beyond the specifics of the case in its broad ruling (“Home-school ruling centers on protection,” Nation, Thursday). Under the guise of “protecting children” this Pontius Pilate-likeChildren’s Law Center of Los Angeleswashes its hands as it passes the Long children over to theNational Education Association-controlled schools.

The state superintendent of public instruction says, “Parents still have the right to home-school.” But home-schooling groups get only a month tofile papers in response to this ruling.Being an optimist, this won’t be a month of no home-school work, but an opportunity for the parents to teach their youth how the legal system works or doesn’t.

SANDER FREDMAN

Leesburg