We shouldn’t pay for Panetta’s trips home
Regarding “Panetta regrets cost of weekend trips home” (News, April 17), I am furious after reading this article about Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He has to go home to California from Washington “just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.”
Panetta has thousands of individuals who work for him who would like to go home every weekend to get things straight. Unfortunately, not only are they not able to go home, they remain in harm’s way 24/7.
If Panetta finds it necessary to go home so often, perhaps he is not the right person for the job.
I’m writing to my congressmen to look into this. Taxpayers should not pay thousands for our defense secretary to go home on weekends.
PATTY HILL, WOODSTOCK
Stay-at-home moms know about economy
Regarding “Romney isn’t your typical working mom” (Readers write, Opinion, April 17), apparently the letter writer is a liberal (or a misogynist) since he believes Mitt Romney would be inadequate to lead this country if he consulted his wife concerning the economy.
Mitt Romney should talk to as many people as possible to know about the state of our economy at all levels.
Stay-at-home moms (even with help) are very aware of the disastrous economy in our country.
Leita Cook, Peachtree City
Toll roads a better answer to traffic woes
I’m not convinced that a sales tax is the total solution to Atlanta’s traffic congestion woes.
Sales tax revenues would certainly be necessary to fund rapid rail and other such initiatives.
However, to authorize a regional sales tax for further highway improvements unfairly penalizes those who neither need nor benefit from those projects.
A better answer would be to authorize toll roads on the major highways and roads intersecting I-285, with toll plazas placed just inside the I-285 boundary. The tolls would target the largest users of those thoroughfares without unfairly burdening the regional nonusers.
Ronald D. Johnson, Austell
Corporate officers obscenely overpaid
Regarding “Appearances, rhetoric, emotions win elections” (Opinion, April 17), columnist Thomas Sowell noted, “The United States now has the dubious distinction of having the highest corporate tax rate in the world.”
He forgot to mention that the U.S. also has the dubious distinction of the most overpaid corporate officers in the world.
It must be a tight squeeze, writing those obscene bonus checks.
Let’s lay out all the dirty linen.
Bob Eberwein, Atlanta
