Loss of team can be hurtful to community
Sam Nader, Sid Levine and the people of Oneonta, when their team, the Oneonta Tigers, moved to Norwich, Conn., must have been hurt and angry.
Here are some of the baseball teams that moved during the 1950s: The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, the New York Giants went to San Francisco. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953 and since 1966 have been the Atlanta Braves. There have been two teams called the Washington Senators, and each left for another city. Now, the former Montreal Expos are called the Nationals.
The biggest blow of all was when the Baltimore Colts, in the middle of the night, went to Indianapolis. I am glad that the Saints beat the Colts. Revenge is sweet.
Erwin Sessler
Deposit
Budget set by Congress, not the president
In a recent letter to the opinion column, W.F. Roberts writes that former President Bush's administration gave away President Clinton's surpluses on what Mr. Roberts assumes was frivolous spending.
It is Congress, not the president, that constructs the budget. True, the president submits a proposed budget to Congress, but it is Congress that crafts the details of the final federal budget.
It may be remembered that several of President Reagan's budget proposals were quickly declared dead on arrival by the Democratic controlled Congress during his administration. The large surpluses that Mr. Roberts talks about were crafted by the Republicans, who delivered the first surpluses in a generation.
But if Mr. Roberts wants to credit President Clinton for the surpluses in his administration and the deficits in President Bush's term with him, it would be interesting to learn his views on our incumbent president.
In his first year, President Obama has racked up a deficit which exceeds all of the deficits of President Bush's eight years combined. That is quite a record, but what is more troubling is President Obama's new budget proposal, which shows a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year and $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined, and none of these deficits includes the cost of his health reform. And even at that, most observers view his estimates are unrealistically overoptimistic.
Through it all, Mr. Roberts wants Republicans to cooperate with President Obama in this abysmal situation and help to send us all over the cliff into bankruptcy.
Robert C. Beckman
Otego
