Suresh Kulkarni

Editor,

Dec. 4, 2012, was a very painful day for me when I found out that my good friend and close associate, Mayor Dennis Fife, had admitted to wrongdoing when he was in a leadership position (Dec. 4, "Brigham City mayor confesses to extramarital ‘indiscretion’"). I immediately wrote an email to him that he must resign because he failed the qualities of a good leader. What he did was a complete disappointment to me. I felt violated because I was a passionate supporter of him on many issues with my family members, friends and community members.

My wife and I recently returned from a trip to the UK where we met people from several nations. Many told us how sorry they felt for us after seeing what Congress and Wall Street have done to our country. They felt that the U.S. is on a declining path rather than one of world leadership.

I am sure many have noticed the TV ads proclaiming that if Hatch and Romney are elected they, with the help of Mike Lee, will get federal spending under control. They imply that it has been rampant under Obama.

But the percentage data proves otherwise as shown in this graph featured in a Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch article from May 22: Under Obaha, federal spending has been at the slowest pace since Eisenhower brought the Korean war to an end in the 1950s. You might recall that Hatch has been in office all along, supporting Reagan and Bush into a federal spending fiasco. Ever since Obama came into office, Republican leaders have had one goal, to defeat him. They have stopped governing and become strict obstructionists, a party of "no." Alan Simpson, former Republican senator, told CNN recently that the rigid opposition to almost every proposal by the other side has hampered productivity and diminished the chances of reaching an agreement on debt reduction.

I used to wake up every morning thinking "we are all going to be okay." But these stressful last few weeks of reading about and watching the polarization amongst our leaders in Washington, I am not sure anymore.

Rather than solving our problems, Congress has become the problem. The credibility of our nation is now in question worldwide, and this is a real tragedy. America matured and grew over the years built on civility and compromise amongst leaders. But now we have a group that is willing to take us into fiscal disaster.

I met a University of Utah physician. He commented "It seems like we don't cure patients anymore. We take care of insurance and pharmaceutical companies."

Shortly thereafter, I read several articles in the Standard-Examiner:

I read with great interest Sen. Orrin Hatch's Viewpoint article, "Washington has attention deficit disorder" in the Nov. 12Standard-Examiner. When I read that "Congress has to change their big spending ways," I was ready to read a list of very specific items that Hatch would identify for reducing the deficit.

But I found that the entire article was the usual finger-pointing, blaming the Democrats and repealing the Health Care Act. It seems like all the Republican leaders chant the same "mantra" as if they have been attending a madrassa that teaches them to regurgitate the same phrases. Didn't they get the message from the last election? A) We want jobs. B) We want the two parties to work together to solve our problems. Every poll taken shows jobs is the single-most important issue for about 65 percent of the electorate. The wars, repealing of the Health Care Act, immigration reform, etc., are a distant second with about 5 percent each.

The Standard-Examiner Editorial Board took a bold stand in this conservative state on Aug. 19 by writing an "Our View" editorial titled "Obama is right on mosque." I am sure it was taken to task by many. And just below the editorial was one by Susan Skordos, a member of the editorial board, entitled "Going Muslim!" She described the interesting experience of her daughter shopping at Gateway wearing a Muslim veil.