The nation is at stake

Jim Furlong (“Let tea partiers govern”) can’t be serious. Put the tea party in control of Congress and the White House? What do we have to lose, he asks?

The nation, that’s what. Tea party policies are very well suited to the 19th century, when the population was much smaller, the economic division of labor far simpler, travel and communications more limited, towns and cities more isolated. With modern conditions, the nation needs exactly what tea partiers do not want.

Want to do away with the EPA? Then you don’t mind mercury being dumped into our rivers. That is exactly what happened before the EPA came along (and was one reason it came along).

Don’t want unions? Then you don’t want a middle class, which means your children will have a lower standard of living than you.

Don’t want regulations for food processing? Then you don’t mind rat meat in your hamburger. You used to get that.

Want lower taxes? Then you don’t want many services. Since tax rates are at their lowest in 60 years, this wish is misbegotten, unless you want no government.

Want no government? Then you just destroyed the nation.

Lee Freese

Pullman