Letters to the editor for Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009

I don't understand why President Obama or his followers object to large Wall Street bonuses. The government taxes those bonuses at almost 50 percent. It's easy money for the government. People bust their butts to earn them, and the government just slips its hand in their pockets and takes almost half. In my opinion, that is what is obscene.

MARY RASSMUSSEN, FARMINGTON

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Instead of bashing Wall Street every five minutes for its financial practices, perhaps Obama should worry about whether his Cabinet appointees pay their taxes.

"Change we can believe in" -- what a joke. "Politics as usual" is more like it.

JEFF SEYFERT, FARMINGTON

The Star Tribune's Feb. 4 editorial questions whether the tax code is too long and complicated and whether that is part of the reason that Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer, Charles Rangel and others are being caught now with their tax envelopes empty (and some of them embarrassing President Obama and seriously damaging the credibility of his proclamations of new approaches and a new America).

For example, Tom Daschle has certainly dealt many times in his career with donated services and the tax issues surrounding them. Also, if these folks have been reading any newspapers in the last five or 10 years they no doubt heard many times (unfortunately) about others of their ranks who have left the Internal Revenue Service empty-handed.

For some of the earlier individuals with tax "problems," the lack of knowledge was certainly not a problem. In some cases they had appropriately paid the tax (e.g., for FICA or unemployment for a hired staff member) for other people or for the (now troublesome) employee for earlier time periods. They were making conscious decisions along the line of "I just don't think I'll pay the tax this time."

I hope that Obama is learning a lesson from these situations. The experiment with a completely different president and governmental environment may be a short one.

RICHARD JOHNSON, SHOREVIEW

So, the Metropolitan Council, which has been trying to get cars off the road for decades, is now short of funds because fewer people are buying cars and putting them on the road ("Mass Transit is in for a rough ride," Feb. 3). How ironic.

MICHAEL OSTAFFE, MAPLE GROVE

Here's a thought: Cars run on gasoline. Gasoline is made from oil. The oil companies saw record profits, again, in 2008 (Associated Press story, Jan. 30). Maybe the oil companies should bail out the car companies.

RALPH BERNSTEIN, MINNETONKA

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann writes that Herbert Hoover tried in vain to end the Depression with "big-government" programs like the public-works spending President Obama is proposing, and that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs made it even worse (Opinion Exchange, Jan. 30). Unfortunately, the facts tell pretty much the opposite story.

It's true that after three years in office, Hoover finally decided in 1932 to try spending on infrastructure, but it was too little, too late. Nevertheless, he did manage to prevent job losses from continuing their free fall. After FDR took office and implemented even more aggressive stimulus programs, the number of American jobs increased by a whopping 29 percent (from 24 million in 1933 to 31 million by the beginning of 1937). What's more, when Roosevelt changed course and cut spending in his second term (as Bachmann would have us do now), unemployment rose again.

COLIN WELLS, EDINA

Rush Limbaugh's saying about President Obama "I hope he fails" should come as no surprise to anyone. As the extreme right's "Howard Stern," Rushbo realizes that his role as a populace divider is in jeopardy. In desperation, he's pathetically trying to keep his show ratings with childish statements.

JIM HERMAN, DULUTH

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Why are people writing to defend Rush Limbaugh's free-speech rights? Are they in danger? No. What we've had is free speech from other citizens criticizing his comments. This is not censure, just give and take in the free marketplace of ideas. Criticism is not a free-speech offense, and is not the result of a "liberal media" and other fantasies.