Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008

So the McCain/Palin campaign has resorted to directing Sarah Palin to claim that Barack Obama has been "palling around with terrorists" -- a statement that isn't true and has been debunked by several major news agencies.

I find it interesting that a person whose spouse has been a member of a party that longs for Alaska to secede from the very country of which she wishes to be vice president would want there to be any conversation about whom people "pal around with."

JOEL RUGGLE, SAVAGE

Congressional inaction on the home mortgage mess is costing us dearly. According to an article in the New York Times on Sept. 20, 1999, Congress allowed Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, to begin "taking on significantly more risk" and pressure banks to "make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings." That's how it all began.

By 2005, some in Congress knew that Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored entity (GSE), was in trouble. On May 25, 2006, Sen. John McCain, a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act of 2005, said, "For years, I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs these [GSEs] ... If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." Soon after, the status of the bill was recorded as "dead."

Washington clearly needs John McCain.

MARK JENSEN, ANOKA

Amy Klobuchar parrots the Nancy Pelosi party's propaganda -- "America's current financial crisis is an indictment of eight years of failed economic policies from the Bush administration ... ."

If, as Joe Biden says, the past is prologue -- a sure bet is that the mainstream media will give Klobuchar a pass on such hogwash.

America's mortgage crisis was avoidable. The ensuing financial crisis is linked to America's cultural-political crisis. And, the financial bailout (a legislated subsidy by taxpayers) is opposed by two-thirds of Americans.

Klobuchar states that "we have a responsibility to find out why it happened." But she omits Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from her "three key reforms that would help bring our system of financial regulations into the 21st century."

Might Klobuchar's omission be because of her sensitivity with regard to Democratic social engineering, led by Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank? That is, Democrats effectively "deregulated" the Fannie and Freddie requirements threshold for subprime borrowers. This resulted in high-risk home mortgages that are implicitly guaranteed by the federal government (aka American taxpayers).

GENE DELAUNE, NEW BRIGHTON

Your Oct. 4 headline reads "Franken bypasses Coleman," yet when I read the article, I found out that another poll conducted at the same time showed the exact opposite results!

The Minnesota Poll shows Al Franken ahead by 9 percentage points, yet the SurveyUSA poll shows Norm Coleman ahead by 10 points. Obviously the headline should have read something like "Polls conflict."

JOHN CROSBY, SHAKOPEE

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On the day of his endorsement as the Republican candidate for the Third District, Erik Paulsen told MPR that he is "not a Ramstad Republican." The League of Conservation Voters and NARAL agree; after years of endorsing Ramstad, they are now endorsing Democratic candidate Ashwin Madia. Voters who wish to continue the Frenzel-Ramstad legacy of fiscal responsibility and moderation will do the same.