YOUR COMMENTS

John McCain? Two words: Keating Five.

He took money from a Savings & Loan, then went in to tell regulators at the FSLC to lay off that S&L, with 4 other Senators. Imagine a regulator facing 5 United States Senators across his desk. He gave them what they wanted, leading to the S&L collapse, costing us Billions. The other 4 didn't run for re-election, or lost when they did.
McCain went on to pass McCain-Feingold, attacking the 1st amendment because he couldn't trust himself to be uncorrupt.

Trust him? Not with his record of selling out.
- Dan Fitzgerald, Falls Church, Va

Mc Cain has my confidence primarily because his long period as a prisoner of war seems to have provided him with a true understanding of loyalty to our nations values, withstand pressure and hold the line to protect his fellow soldiers. He is , keen awareness of the need to protect our nation from corrupt actions by its representatives. For many decades, I have been introducing others to the "pork"" attached to nearly every bill proposed. The authors of such inside lobbying for their own constituents do so with full knowledge "attachments" in issues of national merit but cannot separate the bad from the good when votes are cast. It has long been the the practice to add the port at the very end of a bill at the very last minute. Thus when the minute arrives for the vote, the revision is buried in the document even though the original may have been read throughoutly and discussed in full prior to the call for the vots. Thus we all pay for under the table deals. The law must insist all benificiaries be declared at the top of the document and that only a single issue are presented in each bill numbered and called for a vote Most authors of "pork" funding want to gain their voters' favor and later calling on constituents when reelection come around.
This practice is not only expensive for taxpayers across the board but should be declared illegal as it fails to reveal its true benefactors gain.
- Mary Horne, Visalia, California

Remember, one man's pork is another's important public project.

Here in California we like federal money. We like it a lot! I can't tell you how many roads, freeways, bridges, port facilities, and recreatioinal areas (to name a few ) have benefitted from pork barrel spending. It's been coming in in a steady stream since the Depression. And nobody, but nobody wants it stopped.

Thus, if pork be the food of public projects, then most Californians (including myself) say, pay on!

Now, as to John McCain's a fine man. But he won't stop pork , he won't be able to.

Lack of line-item veto you know......
as president.
- Carl W. Goss, Los Angeles CA

Bill Clinton did not give us the largest tax increase in history, as Corey Conrad claims below. He raised tax rates to match the Congressionally approved spending. That means he lowed our tax liability by the amount of interest that taxpayers would have become liable for had they continued the radical deficits run up by both Reagan and Bush I.

Taxes are not lowered by lowering tax rates. Taxes are only lowered by cutting spending. Cutting tax rates below spending, like what President Bush II and the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS did, increases taxes by the amount of interest.

I call it the REPUBLICAN INTEREST EXPENSE PORK PROGRAM.

John McCain voted to lower tax rates below spending while Hillary simultaneously did not. That means John McCain voted to raise taxes by lowering tax rates below spending when Hillary refused to spend our hard earned tax money on interest on the REPUBLICAN debt.
- Bob Jean, Northwood, NH

I must take issue with what Bob Jean wrote about Clinton being fiscally responsible. The fact is that when Bill Clinton took office, he gave us the largest tax increase in American history, blatantly going back on his promise to cut taxes on the middle class. He then tried to turn our health care system into a huge unwieldly government program, with a little help from Hillary of course. There were deficets projected down the line, until the American people voted in the first Republican Congress in 50 years, and they actually acted like Republicans to boot! They held Slick Willie's feet to the fire, and in true Clintonite fashion he abandoned his entire belief system, stole all our best ideas, and held the Congress out to be evil, heartless Republicans, and won his precious re-election. John McCain will restore this important conservative principle, fiscal stewardship, to our government.
- Corey Cronrath, Reading, PA

McCain is a good candidate in some regards, but his voting record proves he is no fiscal conservative. The top candidates in the race have proven to be pretty much the same regarding spending - big government, big expenditures and big debt: make our kids pay. Of course, the democrats are big government, big expenditures, and big taxes: make us pay. For some reason the UL editors prefer to listen to the rhetoric than watch the actions of politicians. Like it or not, if fiscal conservatism is a top criterion in your candidate selection then Ron Paul is your man – both in rhetoric and actions.
- Peter Sorrentino, Manchester

Wake Up America, With the newly passed federal budget, and all the pork for things like a tennis camp, and many other wasteful spending ideas from our congress what is next free ice cream and softball drinks for all the young people? When will this type of spending stop? I guess never as long as we send people to Washington, pay them well and give them a free hand with our money. We must elect people who will not look out for those that give them money ,but for those of us that are retired.

Doug Dicey
Kennebunkport, Maine
- Doug Dicey, Kennebunkport, Maine

Hillary Clinton can be trusted to balance the budget and return us to the Clinton surplus trend to help pay down our debt and reduce the amount of our hard earned tax money that goes to pay down the REPUBLICAN debt.

But if Hillary is beaten in Iowa by Democrats who have not prepared themselves like Hillary has to be President, Independents should consider voting for John McCain to insure that voters have a competent and "a very prepared to be President" option for the general election.

Thank you to the Union Leader for pointing out the one Republican who will behave fiscally responsible if elected.
- Bob Jean, Northwood, NH

Paul Hodes likes to spend our money - including increaisng his own pay when he votd for the Congressional Cost of living increase earlier this year. He and Craole Shea Porter both voted for the raise even though they had just been sworn in as representatives a few months earlier. Paul hodes never responded to my request for clarification as to how he justied his decision to raise his own pay! What a fine representative for his pockets!
- Patrick Spooner, Windham

I'm all for cutting pork projects but I think the man to do it is Ron Paul. He would not only veto these projects and any other unconstitutional laws congress passes, he would also work to get rid of the income tax that collects our hard earned money to pay for this waste. Additionally the Iraq war McCain supports has cost at least 400 billion dollars (by government estimates) and likely more. Ron Paul supports the foreign policy that George W Bush professed when first elected and that George Washington encouraged in his farewell address. Ron Paul would remove our troops from Iraq thus saving much more than the $20 billion of pork mentioned in this article. I encourage the readers to support the Live Free or Die principles of NH and vote for Dr. Paul. His scalpel will surely cut more from the federal budget than McCain ever would.
- Edward Farley, Lebanon

President Bush has the authority to end earmarks completely this year according to a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

It seems that in its rush to get the budget bill passed Congress did not include its earmarks in the bill itself. So, the newly passed legislation that was presented to the President for signature contained no earmarks.

The earmarks were in a "report" that Congress did not vote on and the President did not sign. Therefore, there is no legal requirement for any of the administration agencies to spend that money.

All President Bush needs to do is to direct the agencies to not spend any of the earmarked money.

Of course, Congressmen of both parties will howl. Let 'em.
- John Bachman, Amherst

According to USA Today using data form Taxpayers for Common Sense, with his almost $9,000,000 in earmarked, sole sponsor spending, our own Paul Hodes is among the top 20 in Congress (all Democrats) who had the most special interest spending this past year. In order to get to that level as a freshman in Congress, Hodes had to agree to send billions of taxpayer dollars, including money from New Hampshire, in earmarks all over the country in exchange for funding of his pet projects. In fact, some of this earmarked spending, such as $213,000 to study the olive fruit fly in France, was sent outside the country. Hodes has flip-flopped on his promises to ensure that the money that comes from our hard work is spent wisely. As with the current legislative leadership in Concord, he has shown himself much more interested in finding ways to spend taxes and to get more from taxpayers than he has been in using our tax dollars wisely. The NH Democrat Party has taken to heart and is applying the Clinton school of politics: stand for nothing, pander with popular statements, sell out early and often, and grab and spend as much as you can. We can trust nothing that Paul Hodes will say as he campaigns next year.
- Bill O'Brien, Mont Vernon