Omission let columnist mislead readers

Several of the opinion writers that you feature fail quite regularly to provide a fair and complete overview of the issues they choose to cover.

A recent example of such omission is reflected in Veronique de Rugy's Sept. 29 commentary purporting to assign blame for any prospect of government financial default. It's the entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as well as the president's proposed new programs (Biden's "spending spree" she calls it) that are to blame for any prospect of default, she asserts.

She neglects to explain that the president's plans were not presented without a method for supporting their costs: (1) Increased taxes on earners reporting over $400,000 of annual income and on large corporations and (2) reducing drug pricing to reduce the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and like programs. And, note that the beneficiaries of these programs largely overlap with the taxpayers supporting them.

How significant was Ms. de Rugy's omission of the fact that the president's proposals did, indeed, detail the method for their financing? Well, some in Congress will be looking beyond the merits of the actual plans and objecting to the proposed methods of financing them.

Thus, for some, the proposed method of funding becomes more significant than the plans themselves, for the proposed funding exposes whose toes would have to be stepped on in order to implement the plans - toes of groups relied on to support the congressmen's next reelection campaign.

Whatever her motives, by withholding essential information and thus suggesting that the president's plans would increase the debt load, Ms. de Rugy fails to treat her topic fairly and thus misleads her readers.

Jim Kinney

Vernon Hills