Coverage in your Jan 8 issue had some glaring problems. In the Associated Press story on the Bush economic stimulus plan, it was stated “Bush offered the nation a massive, $674 billion prescription for better fiscal health “. It didn’t state that Bush’s plan is over 10 years or that it will not stimulate the economy until 2004.

The characterization of the plan as “massive” when it will have so little effect on our trillion dollar economy belonged on the editorial page, not page 1.

But I was pleased to read that all members of the Maine legislative delegation have reservations about President Bush’s stimulus plan. Any plan to stimulate the U.S. economy should address our immediate problems by putting money in consumers’ hands now; addressing the failure of corporate governance; and stabilizing the price of oil.

Instead, Bush proposes putting the money in the hands of investors sometime in the future; doing nothing on new auditing standards or strengthening SEC oversight of corporations; and he is mobilizing for a war which will disrupt international oil markets.

Once again Bush’s rhetoric and action contradict each other as he lies to the American people.

You also carried another AP story that the Brady Campaign had rated Maine an ‘F’ on our gun control laws. We should be proud we got an “F.”

Maine has no problem of juvenile gun violence and laws addressing juvenile gun violence are hopelessly ineffective. The report itself stated that those with an “F” grade had a 33 percent higher “firearms death rate of youth” than states with an “A” or “B” rating. Given the inaccuracy and the intentional misuse of these kinds of statistics, a rate only one-third higher has no hope of being meaningful and therefore the Brady Campaign’s proposals appear not to address juvenile gun violence.

But your story did not mention any of the many problems in the Brady report.

Jonathan Albrecht, Dixfield

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