Letter: Republican realists?   I got a good chuckle from Alan
Carabine's letter describing Republicans as "realists" ("Health
care is not a 'right' — it is a responsibility," July 1).  Was
he describing our local ones who don't believe in ethics reform,
who gave away $13 million to silence a private contractor and
who deny the negative consequences of lowest per-pupil spending
in the nation?  Or the ones in D.C. who believe that the
president was born in Kenya, that trickle-down economics works
(while the rich are fattening their wallets, the middle-class
disappears and our economy continues to stagnate), that the war
in Iraq would pay for itself and that thought it wise to
downgrade our credit rating?  Realist wasn't the description I
was thinking. In fact, in today's political climate, neither
party should be described as "realist." However, the Affordable
Care Act is a step in the right direction and President Obama
couldn't have done it without the idea of the individual mandate
created by the Heritage Fo