Passing finances
As Congress races towards its end-of-January deadline to move the FY2026 finances, one reality have to be entrance and heart: we can not afford a repeat of final 12 months’s chaos.
The unlawful impoundments and partisan rescissions by the Trump Administration in 2025 weren’t mere technical disputes; they have been an assault on Congress’s constitutional energy of the purse. When any administration ignores the legislation and withholds funds Congress has already directed, it undermines the very construction that retains our Republic standing.
Our democracy survives solely when every department respects its constitutional function. When that steadiness is violated, public belief crumbles, confusion reigns, and the foundations of our authorities weaken.
As lawmakers form the following finances, they need to construct in agency safeguards that forestall future administrations from defying the desire of Congress. The finances should not solely move; it have to be enforceable.
I urge our elected officers to guard the Structure by passing a finances that ensures the Administration carries out the legislation as Congress meant. Our democracy depends upon it.
William Deignan
Medford
Reparations
I hold listening to about reparations. My largest query is why ought to I’ve to pay reparations since considered one of my ancestors died in Andersonville Jail whereas combating to free the slaves. I believe that if reparations are accredited then we’d like reparations for each one of many Union lifeless, individuals who gave their lives to free the slaves. And eventually why ought to individuals who have been by no means slaves get cash from individuals who by no means owned slaves?
Jeffrey Padell
East Walpole
Russia
The proposed peace plan to finish Russia’s devastating warfare in Ukraine is a capitulation to Russia, and it rewards an invading hostile nation. Moreover, the resultant plan offers Russia impetus to conduct future warfare to develop additional west in Europe.
The plan requires Russia to cease the warfare, however it will retain the land it occupied through the invasion, which is one fifth of Ukraine. Ukraine must scale back the dimensions of its army. It must agree to not be a part of NATO and never permit NATO troops on its territory.
Ukraine would obtain a assure from the U.S. for safety safety, however the U.S. assured defending Ukraine in 1994 if Ukraine agreed to disarm its nuclear weapons and ship them to Russia. Ukraine complied with the settlement, and Russia then proceeded to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
The peace plan contains lifting the sanctions on Russia thereby permitting Russia to renew world commerce.
This peace plan jogs my memory of the Munich Settlement signed by Neville Chamberlain of Nice Britain and Adolph Hitler of Nazi Germany on Sept. 30, 1938, which included ceding a part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler for his promise to not additional develop in Europe. Subsequently from 1939 to 1944 Hitler invaded and occupied a big a part of Europe.
Donald Moskowitz
Londonderry, NH
