Readers Write for Saturday, Sept. 26

I never thought I'd say this, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was right: The honorable thing to do for her constituents was to quit while pursuing her political opportunities.

What is worse: Quitting, or being an absentee governor, as our Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been while pursuing his political opportunities?

I wish I had a job where I could travel the country to pursue opportunities that would benefit me and not get fired by my employer.

MICHAEL LA FAVE, FOREST LAKE

The Star Tribune proposes to saddle businesses with yet another layer of red tape by encouraging cities to create some form of information registry. The Sept. 18 editorial states, "In the interest of public health and safety, cities should do what it takes to provide the safest and most effective emergency service."

Almost any regulation could be justified by such an Orwellian statement. But putting aside the paternalism and privacy concerns such programs raise in an age of GIS data systems, we're in a recession. Government needs to help small businesses by getting out of their way, not put another unnecessary hurdle in their path -- especially one that assaults common sense.

Undoubtedly, every business has already submitted reams of paperwork about its activities. Yet we're to believe cities need just one more document? (And by the way, that will be $50.)

Is it too cynical to believe that this is just another convenient revenue stream?

JASON ADKINS, ST. PAUL

In preparing for a recent town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. John Kline, I gathered information on health care expenditures from the school district that I teach in -- Rosemount/Apple Valley/Eagan.

From 1999 to 2008, there were consecutive double-digit increases in money spent on health care by year, starting in 1999 with expenditures of $10 million and ending in 2008 with expenditures of $25 million -- a 150 percent increase, coinciding with staff employment on the decline over the last four years.

How many products on the free market have seen a 150 percent increase in cost in the last 10 years? Fourteen dollars for a gallon of milk? Eight dollars for a gallon of gas? We are being fleeced by the health insurance industry, plain and simple. I am still waiting for an insurance executive to explain to me how premiums $500 more a month than my mortgage are reasonable.

TONY OLSON, FARMINGTON

Perhaps we should all take a moment to thank the employees of our FBI for protecting our country from Al-Qaida's most recent attempt to kill Americans and ruin our fragile economic recovery.

The dedicated civil servants at this federal government agency are the best and the brightest.

JEFF GOODMAN, HOPKINS

Should the University of Minnesota decide to litigate the issue of the Central Corridor rail's interference with research equipment, it should bear 100 percent of the cost of the litigation and any construction delays. For a purportedly "world-class" research university, it seems curious that the U does not have the engineering talent to solve any vibration and stray electromagnetic fields from the Central Corridor line on a case-by-case basis.

This is a classic case of biting the hand that feeds it The Metropolitan Council represents the taxpayers of the area, the very people whose support the U needs for funding.

RUSS ISBRANDT, WHITE BEAR LAKE

Last week Rep. Betty McCollum stood up to be counted with an organization known for perverting our electoral process, and recently for advocating tax evasion, racketeering, prostitution, fraud and worst of all, trafficking in persons for the purpose of underage prostitution.

For McCollum to say the bill to eliminate federal funding to them was merely a "Republican distraction" betrays her complete lack of any moral compass and common sense. She pledged her support to them, instead of her decent, hardworking constituents whose tax dollars she also pledged.

TIM JOHNSON, ROSEVILLE

Last week two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp caught a few ACORN staff on camera trying to assist them in illegal and immoral conduct. Congress reacted by defunding the organization.

More than 20 members of Congress and staff have been accused of criminal acts in the last 10 years. The vast majority have been indicted, pled guilty to, and/or were convicted for these acts. Still others have been exposed as engaging in inappropriate sexual activity. All this has been discovered without the help of the activist photographers.

Clearly Congress needs to defund itself!