Editor, Gazette-Journal:

It was interesting to read Joe Mereness’s letter ("Not American enough?" Sept. 27 Readers Write) about how he feels and relates to average Americans like himself with no foreign bank accounts or huge tax deductions who work and pay various taxes contributing to government programs, especially after proceeding to Nancy P. Lewis’s letter ("Do you really want socialism?") containing no facts but only a bad metaphor about a non-existent school grade curve that supposedly explains the right-wing’s "Redistribution of Wealth" theory.

Nancy’s letter is non-sensible as she fails to make a case that Redistribution of Wealth, whatever that means, can even lead to socialism, but she did make me think about what has happened to public school education in the U.S., a capitalist country. Education has gone to the dogs here, but it’s not because of socialism.

Socialist economic countries and even some third-world countries are producing better-educated children, and at a lesser cost, than America. This is a trend that has evolved over several decades and we need to ask ourselves why, with the amount of money the U.S. spends on public education, we have failed to keep up.

If the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s health care program having the same attributes as Romney’s successful Massachusetts health care program, is allowed to go forward, the country will reap the benefits of lower heath care costs by 2014 with many more people being covered by insurance.

Let’s not blame socialism for all of the problems facing our country today; socialism did not bring about two U.S. wars in this century.

And remember that those who have paid into our government programs during their working lives deserve to benefit from their investment in retirement and if Congress will do its job after the election and compromise on budget reform, programs will be modified and saved for our children.

The "Redistribution of Wealth" slogan is simply a talking point that right-wing politics has adopted to put a scare into people. We’ve always had a progressive tax rate that funds support for government programs aiding a variety of people. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric.

Ralph Perkins

Gloucester, Va.