Edgar Allen Beem once more regales us with his divisive thoughts on the tea party and the “Evil Empire” of the Republican Party. I have a suggestion: perhaps we can all start having intelligent, meaningful discussions to solve the current economic mess. Most of the anger by the tea party was directed at Congress, not President Obama. It’s true that the Congress along with George Bush spent money like drunken sailors. The sad thing is that America looked to the new president for change. President Obama told us that he would change the way Washington has been operating. That hasn’t happened.

Health care is an example of what went wrong. Instead of meeting openly with representatives from the insurance, pharmaceutical and health-care provider industries in July 2009, President Obama invited 100 doctors to the White House for a photo op. It wasn’t until February 2010 that he sat down with senators for a summit. Congress should have created a bipartisan committee to look at all the possible ways to cut the cost of health care. Instead, both parties fell victim to the same old partisan politics, and nothing was accomplished. What came out of this was a health-care bill that’s a huge pile of paper, most of which Congress didn’t read before it was passed.

I want smaller government and you want bigger government. We should be able to come to some consensus to save this economy.

Lin White
Pownal