About Bryce Ashby and Michael LaRosa’s Viewpoint on requiring state legislators to take remedial civics classes …
I entirely agree with the Bryce Ashby and Michael LaRosa that our state legislators should be required to pass a civics test in order to hold office. That would certainly reduce the laughing-stock potential of Tennessee nationally.
But why stop there? Equally important to the functioning of our representative republic is an informed electorate. Let’s require a simple civics test at the polls on each election day. (My parents had to do this back in the 1950s, along with a $1 poll tax. Both measures have since been declared unconstitutional.)
But just think about it: If voters even had to come up with one correct answer regarding the fundamentals of our government, there would never be a Democrat elected in Tennessee again!
Bill Busler
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column on Obamacare …
The Affordable Care Act was drafted in a Senate committee chaired by Max Baucus of Montana. Years ago, I considered moving to Montana, so I took the Billings Gazette for a long time. I followed the career of Baucus from the state legislature to Congress to the Senate. He was a Democrat in a Republican-leaning state.
His Senate committee quickly discarded the single-payer system, like Medicare, when it met resistance. They switched to a plan that originated in a conservative think tank and was the basis of the Massachusetts health-care plan. Baucus took nearly 200 suggestions from Republicans to be bipartisan. It got no Republican votes, and Republicans have zealously tried to impede and repeal it, yet they have no replacement plan for the 7.5 million now signed up.
Why is Governor Haslam afraid of Tenncare being defunded after expansion? If he’s really concerned about the state’s finances, he wouldn’t have let more than $100 million in money already taxed and collected go to other states. No one has seen the alternative to Tenncare that the governor is supposedly proposing to Health and Human Services. There is a kicker in a provision in the law called the “shared responsibility tax” on employees that could run as high as $72 million. What will they do if the the governor and the legislature don’t act?
Greg Cravens
Raymond Skinner
About Jackson Baker’s post, “Whalum Slams Joe Brown’s Pretensions to Party Leadership” …
TRUTH !!!!!! “How in the world, how on God’s green earth, can a person be literally gone from Memphis and Shelby County for 20 years and come back and claim to be the Democratic boss?”
Tom Guleff
About Bianca Phillips’ post, “House Resolution Seeks to Defend Tennessee Marriage Amendment” …
Soon Joe Carr and his sorry ilk will be in the trash heap of history along with the segregationists of yesteryear. Meanwhile, they will waste our tax money passing useless resolutions and defending discriminatory laws that will soon be void. Marriage equality is winning!
Chris in Midtown
About a post titled “What’s Wrong With Zach Randolph’s Defense?” …
He’s slow and can’t jump. I’m prone to brevity.
38103
About a Toby Sells News Blog item, “Halbert: State is to Blame for Untested Rape Kits in Memphis” …
We can thank the Tennessee Republicans for not funding the testing of rape kits. And they call themselves “Christians” … only if Charles Manson is the Pope. Let us not forget it was these same Republicans who tried to pass a bill that would have redefined rape to make it legal. Vote Republican and you vote to support rape of women and children.
Sam Cardinal
