What can we expect?

The election is over and now we will see if the Democrats can govern as well as they criticize. If the liberals such as Speaker Pelosi, Senator Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean control the agenda, we have reason to be concerned. However, the fact that Rep. Hoyer was elected majority leader is reason to be optimistic.

Change occurs slowly. What we need to be concerned about is that the Democrats will pander to labor unions and significantly damage free trade programs. While there is constant talk about losing jobs to other countries, there is no problem for us since our unemployment rate is at or near an all-time low for the last half century during the time when jobs were being exported. The better jobs stay here.

And we need to be concerned that the Democrats will damage our free market economy. There is abundant evidence of the value of free markets. Witness the results in Eastern Europe after the implosion of Communism and, more recently, the changes in China and India. The Socialist inclinations of (especially) the liberal Democrats will be damaging in the long term. The most vivid example of the value of free markets is the contrast with the stagnation in India for nearly a half century with a Socialist government and the recent economic growth after adopting open market policies.

One would think that Joe Howard Crews and Robert F. Green would be happy now that the Democrats are the majority party, but it seems their paranoia is too deeply rooted (Letters No. 23). I am very happy that my representative in Congress, Darrell Issa, is a realistic and rational individual. Didn’t President Roosevelt say, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”?

Glen Holzhausen