Editor:
Recently re-elected, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-33rd) is writing more letters once again, not to protect our veterans, not to get our troops out of Afghanistan, but to protest the closure of the Fifth Street post office in Santa Monica. I do not understand what drives this legislator to focus on such picayune issues such as keeping a post office open, when the Brentwood VA remains closed to the very public it was intended to serve: our veterans.
Granted, the inconvenience of not being able to deliver mail at a closer facility will unnerve certain people, and the Fifth Street post office is a prized piece of New Deal Americana. Yet our troops, the looming fiscal crises, and the ongoing foreign policy failures in the Middle East deserve more attention.
Let's not forget the well-being of our immigrant population throughout the Santa Monica Bay. Congressman Waxman has proposed nothing to alleviate the second-tier status of immigrant youth whose parents brought them to this country without naturalization status. Waxman ought to right letters diminishing the welfare state so that this country can open the borders and permit any able-bodied individual to find work.
Thirty-eight years of mixed priorities and lost time does not excuse letting him off the hook. Congressman Waxman then and now has a record of doing too much on issues of no importance and not enough on the issues that matter. He wasted too much time on steroid abuse in baseball. It's time for Waxman to get busy for all of us.
Arthur Christopher Schaper
Torrance, Calif.
