Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Jan. 30

Contrary to President Bush's remarks in his final State of the Union address, our nation is weakening and off course. Compared to last year, or any year since he took office, the United States has more debt, more homeless, more people living in poverty, more people without health insurance, more lives lost in Iraq and a greater dependence on foreign oil.

We have a higher percentage of people in prison, hungry or poorly educated. We have veterans not getting the health care due them. Our civil rights are being eroded and our Constitution weakened. Osama bin Laden is still at large, and the threat his group poses grows. There has been little progress in resolving hostilities and brutalities in Africa and in addressing our aging domestic infrastructure.

By any measure, we are going the wrong direction, and have been for years. These are the issues candidates should address.

KEN LESSLEY, NEW HOPE

Perfect record Regarding the president's State of the Union address, we apparently are going on eight years with a president who's never made a mistake.

Maybe with the next president we will be luckier.

JAMES KONDRICK, EDINA

During contentious 2005 hearings for President Bush's judicial nominations, Sen. John McCain asked Obama if he would set aside partisanship and join the "Gang of 14," a group of moderate senators from both parties committed to building a bipartisan coalition to restore the integrity of the confirmation process and avert the "nuclear option" -- an extreme measure that would have done away with the 60-vote cloture rule. Obama would have nothing of it.

Evidently Obama, when given the chance, decided that playing the role of a "consensus builder" was anathema to his true partisan ethos. Are we to expect that a President Obama would think and act any differently?

JEFF CARLSTROM, MANKATO

Regarding your Jan. 24 editorial on the legislative calendar being too short: I believe it was the late NBC news anchor David Brinkley who first declared that the worst invention of the 20th century was the air conditioner. It allowed the legislative branch in Washington to stay in session during the summer and do more harm than had previously been the case.

Sorry, we need our legislators in session more often as much as we need more potholes.

I was in the audience of the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce event at which Gov. Tim Pawlenty stated that he wants to divert some of the growth in Minnesota's social-service and welfare spending to other priorities. I didn't really find his remarks to be news -- just more of what we've come to expect he took office in 2003.

Contrary to what the governor wants us to believe, it's not funding for welfare and other social services that's crowding out other important budget priorities; it's his unwavering attachment to his "no-new-taxes" pledge.

According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2008 enrollment in Minnesota's welfare programs is forecast to hit its lowest average monthly levels since 1998. And despite inflammatory assertions, Minnesota is far from the welfare magnet it is often portrayed as. According to the state demographer, only a fraction -- 1.3 percent -- of the domestic immigrants who moved to the state between 1995 and 2000 received $1,000 or more in public assistance. In fact, the biggest portion of the health and human service budget is spent on health care, nursing homes and long-term care services for the elderly and disabled.

Pawlenty refuses to acknowledge that it's not fiscal irresponsibility driving up spending growth in health care and social services. Rather, looming demographic trends in Minnesota and the nation will continue to have a significant impact on state and federal budgets. As baby boomers age to retirement and beyond, they will require an increasing variety of long-term care services -- both nursing facilities and in-home care. At the same time, their retirements will yield slower growth in the state's income and sales tax base to pay for these services and other state budget items.

To suggest that Minnesotans must sacrifice health care for our children and nursing homes for our aging parents, that we must forgo access to mental health care for veterans or services that allow disabled individuals to fully participate in their community, is outrageous and irresponsible. It ignores long-term health care challenges that aren't going away, and it does nothing to move us toward meaningful solutions for other urgent needs in transportation, infrastructure and education.

REP. Shelley Madore,

DFL-Apple Valley

As Congress goes back to work, let's hope that it finally addresses mental-health parity.

Minnesota has had some form of mental-health parity since 1975. In 1995, Minnesota passed one of the strongest, most comprehensive parity laws in the country, prohibiting unequal behavioral health insurance coverage -- including deductibles, copayments and maximum allowable office visits. Minnesota's law requires that mental-health coverage be equal to all other health-care coverage.

But unfortunately, there are many Minnesotans who are covered by a self-insured plan that does not provide for true mental-health parity, so they must wait for the national bill to be passed.

Surely on an issue that affects one in four people Congress can find the political will to treat mental illness like any other medical illness. Pass parity and pass it now.

SUE ABDERHOLDEN, ST. PAUL;