In "Why Business Should Fear the Tea Party" (op-ed, Oct. 29), Robert Reich fails to state that the largest U.S. companies have played both sides of the political fence for years. The result is ethanol, windmills, the elimination of the incandescent light bulb, ridiculous car safety and gas mileage standards, the elimination of top-loading washing machines and other laws that have reduced competitiveness and established a government-business alliance that is part of our spending problem. This has resulted in a tax code that carves out special tax breaks for certain businesses. We in the tea party would like business to be competitive and not part of the ever-increasing crowd suckling on the government teat. So yes, some businesses should be nervous.
Davies Wakefield
Green Bay, Wis.
Mr. Reich's statement, "tea party activists consider the Troubled Asset Relief Program a betrayal of America" doesn't quite capture all of the tea partiers' feelings toward TARP. For years Wall Street touted itself as entrepreneurial and pro-free market, but when a number of firms faced the downside of entrepreneurialism and of free markets, they cried "uncle" and got the government to bail out a number of them. Many tea partiers who are entrepreneurs did not have such luxuries and are tired of the hypocrisy.
Carter Evans
Washington
Sane, intelligent people are raising serious and thoughtful questions about our large government institutions. Instead of responding to the arguments, Mr. Reich dismisses tea party ideals as "dangerous idiocy." Business leaders should beware, all right, but not of tea partiers.
Reasonable people may differ with the tea party on any of the points Mr. Reich raises, but the points deserve discussion. Neither Mr. Reich nor anyone else can make the arguments or the people who hold them go away with a wave of the hand. To Mr. Reich I say, "Come armed with an argument, not an insult."
Terry Noel
Normal, Ill.
Robert Reich's piece reminds me of Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's retort when Sen. Dan Quayle compared himself to President John Kennedy during a televised debate. Mr. Reich has never owned a business or created a job in the private sector. I am a physician and small-business owner and can rightly say, "Mr. Reich, I know business and you, sir, are no businessman."
Richard Schram
Austin, Texas
Robert Reich misunderstands regime uncertainty. Regime uncertainty is increased by changes that project into the indefinite future a greater degree of arbitrary government economic intervention.
For this reason, talk of replacing the Federal Reserve's arbitrary monopoly over the U.S. money supply with a more decentralized and competitive monetary system does not, contrary to Mr. Reich's claim, spawn regime uncertainty of the sort that is spawned by "progressive" talk of (and action toward) empowering government with ever-more authority to tax, spend, borrow, block, "protect," punish, reward, subsidize, bail out, restrict, require, prohibit, cap, quantitatively ease, universally insure, stimulate, regulate, investigate, interrogate, moratoriate and otherwise override, with politically poisoned official diktats, the private choices and contracts of individuals.
Prof. Donald J. Boudreaux
George Mason University
Fairfax, Va.
The tea party is not a movement "on the fringe." The majority of its adherents are in the great center of the political spectrum, and they're backing leaders who they think will represent their ideas. They want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have. They want fiscal responsibility. They want their governmental leaders to be truly representative. They're not happy with either political party.
Mr. Reich's opinion confirms that he is out of touch with mainstream America.
D.M. Plumb
Jacksonville, Fla.
Mr. Reich curiously now disparages those same Americans who elected his Democratic friends. Americans, in his view, acted rationally in 2008 and clearly must now be "threatened" and "are easy prey."
Here is a free public policy lesson for the U.C. Berkeley professor whose task, ironically, is to help students become critical, independent thinkers: When Congress and the administration enact fringe, ideologically driven policies that fail to move the country in a direction supported by the electorate, Americans will force those politicians from power. The only people threatened and scared today are those who support liberal ideology.
Erik R. Cafarella
Glastonbury, Conn.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 