Why is it that new and renovated stadiums are sold as necessary projects?

The public is told that these projects are too good to pass up and that we will all benefit greatly from the increased business they bring.

Yet, if these projects are so great, why are the team and stadium owners afraid to put up their own money for the work?

Instead, we the taxpayers will get saddled not only with additional debt but also higher ticket and concession prices. It is time we say “no” to unnecessary projects that will continue to saddle future generations with debt.

Like a person who pays off one large credit card balance only to ring up a similar balance on a different card, our county government seems almost giddy to create new bond debt with a renovated civic center now that the jail bond has been retired.

What kind of message are we sending our children when we continue to live beyond our means and when we make entertainment centers a priority for our very limited public resources?

Are non-club seats, stale pizza and long bathroom lines really that much of an issue if the tradeoff is putting our fiscal house in order?

Clearly the government still has not learned the hard lessons of its irresponsible fiscal behavior.

Let’s just hope, when the votes are counted, that the public proves smarter and more responsible than our county commissioners.

Bill Stauffer

Scarborough

Editorial on Obama yields considerable dissent 

This is in response to your editorial (July 27) titled “President dodges his obligation to lead.” You state that the president should have used his recent speech to put forth a “viable plan.”

He already has offered that plan, and he used 15 minutes on Monday to explain it to the public.

The plan Obama proposes is a true compromise. The fact that the extremes of both Democratic and Republican parties oppose it is a measure of its moderation.

Obama is proposing huge spending cuts of $4 trillion, which the well-respected conservative journalist David Brooks calls “an astonishing concession.”

In addition, Obama has stated that he will consider reductions in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare (which primarily impact low- and middle-class Americans) in exchange for the Republicans only needing to agree to close loopholes in the tax law that primarily benefit the rich and to increase taxes for the very richest amongst us.

This seems the very definition of shared sacrifice, with those at every income level asked to contribute.

We are quickly losing the opportunity to make substantial cuts in spending, restrain the growth of entitlements, and eliminate government incentives that distort the economic basis of decisions. This compromise is reasoned and fair, and, most importantly, is in the best interest of the country.

And Speaker John Boehner’s latest short-term proposal, that will have us in the same situation six months from now? Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, stated way back in June 2011: “If we can’t make the tough decisions now, why would (we) be making those tough decisions later?

“I don’t see how multiple votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we want to go.” Agreed.

Sharon Landry

Kennebunk 

Obama needs to compromise to be the bigger man? Your editorial is so off the mark it’s not laughable.

President Obama has compromised. Over and over again, he compromises. His mistake is that he compromised too soon ($4 trillion in tax cuts for modest revenue contributions from closing tax loopholes and asking the wealthiest to sacrifice with the rest of us) — not appreciating the political brinksmanship that the tea partiers are willing to utilize in order to bring about their scorched-earth agenda.

But we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the old guard Republicans’ desire to make Obama, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, a “one-term president.”

It’s with the assistance of editorials like yours at their side that they dream of laying full blame for this fiasco at his feet. We are where we are because the Republican Party is completely dysfunctional — being held hostage by its tea party faction.

Remind us again, please, what they have brought as a compromise? I don’t mean the kicking of the can “we’ll do this again in six months” idea. Where’s a real Republican compromise? There isn’t any. Considering they have yet to offer any compromise, that is where you should direct your indignation.

Rebecca Millett

Cape Elizabeth 

In your editorial of July 27, you mention a “previously untold truth,” namely that “actual default is not on the immediate horizon.”

You base this previously untold truth on the “news reports” of recent days that “White House officials were privately reassuring bankers there would be no default, even as the president was telling the American people that default was imminent.”

Since the “news reports” are essential to determine the truth in the matter, it would behoove you to spell them out more clearly rather than simply state them as facts.

Raymond F. Begin

Windham 

If I want to read “Human Events” or Heritage Foundation rants, I’ll subscribe to them. I don’t expect such ignorant trash in Press Herald editorials.

From the start of President Obama’s presidency, the Republican Party has refused to pass any legislation offered by Democrats. That was their announced plan, and they’ve followed it to the letter.

Printing an editorial filled with such misinformation and outright lies as the one on July 27 brings nothing but shame on the state’s major daily newspaper.

Don Federman

Portland