GOP needs modern ideas

Re “An absolute menace,” Opinion, March 13

Does the Club for Growth actually think that labeling moderate Republican senators “comrade of the month” means anything at all to the majority of American voters? I doubt that most people make the connection between comrade and communist. How many American voters even know who Karl Marx was? Next will the Club for Growth be calling Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) a Wobbly?

Isn’t it time somebody told former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and the Club for Growth that Red-baiting went out with Joe McCarthy? But then again, what’s a Red, and who’s Joe McCarthy?

Ronald Rubin

Topanga

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Ronald Brownstein extols the wonders of bipartisanship, mourning its loss in today’s Congress. He seems unaware that bipartisanship is only valuable when both parties have good ideas to bring to the table.

When people experienced massive capital losses last fall, Republicans suggested cutting the capital gains tax. When Americans started losing their jobs in frightening numbers, Republicans suggested an income tax holiday. When economists all over the world and the ideological map agree that stimulus funding was needed to help the economy move forward, Republicans suggested a spending freeze.

This is not my father’s Republican Party.

I wish we had an honorable, functioning conservative party to help us navigate the difficult waters we’re in, because we can use all the help we can get.

Renee Leask

Glendale