Letters to the Rockville Centre editor March 29, 2012

Some questions for Romney from New Yorkers

To the Editor:

The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, will soon be making the rounds in New York state and probably Long Island in preparation for the primary on April 24. That will be a big day for Republicans, with primaries also being held in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

Undoubtedly, the former Massachusetts governor will be looking to the Northeast as one of his remaining strengths before major delegate selections in Texas and California. Indeed, Romney may be angling to use the results of the voting on the 24th to call himself the presumptive nominee.

As exhaustive as the Romney campaign has been, it has left open some important questions that would be appropriate for New Yorkers to ask him:

Under a Romney presidency, what sacrifices would people of an income and net worth like his be asked to make in order to help reduce the national deficit?

What is beyond “diversification,” and why was it so necessary for Romney personally and his company, Bain Capital, to invest using numerous well-know tax havens? Were they knowingly attracting investors to these havens, taking huge investment advisory fees from them and turning a blind eye to the fact that the investors may have been tax evaders, even if Romney and Bain weren’t?

The former governor has stated many times that he has created jobs as a chief executive officer in the private sector, and accordingly has the experience to do the same as the chief executive in the public sector. Since we know he is planning to reduce public expenditures, Romney needs to elaborate on specifically what his plans are, rather than simply repeat that he believes his positive private-sector experience will naturally translate into public-sector success in creating jobs.

There has been much discussion of the mounting national debt. When will the Romney campaign issue a plan to deal with the debt that is specific about the savings it would achieve? Before April 24? Before the primaries in Texas and California? During the Republican convention, or before the election?

Republicans should seek answers to these important questions. Just how they are handled by the campaign are possible game changers, and will tell the American people a lot more about a possible President Romney.

Steven Atlas

Rockville Centre

What’s happened to our language?

To the Editor:

I very much appreciated Randi Kreiss’s column “Overdosing on linguistic pap and … whatever” (March 15-21). “Awesome” and “My bad” are really wearing thin, especially since there are so many other creative words and phrases to express ourselves.

The only defense, if I can call it that, for our modern usages is that my generation (I’m 66) had our excessively used words and phrases as well: “boss,” “far out,” “dig it,” etc.

Every generation has its slang vocabulary, but Randi’s point is well taken, since the correct use of good English seems to be declining.

Jim Hawkins

Baldwin