To the editor:

A strange thing happened after Barack Obama took office; Republicans suddenly and collectively suffered from amnesia and couldn't remember anything that took place under the Bush Administration. They can't remember that their president amassed the largest deficit in U.S. history. Only Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, came close. They also can't remember that it was their administration that passed on to the new President not only an astronomic deficit, but also an economy in total ruin. It's absolutely laughable that a political party with such a dismal fiscal record is trying to defeat health care reform because, according to them, it's too expensive.

Why didn't the Tea Party rebels oppose the Iraq war, which George Bush duped us into, as unnecessary and too expensive? (It would have saved us at a minimum $730 billion and counting.) That money would have gone a long way to help pay for health care reform.The Iraq war mostly benefited weapons manufacturers and defense contractors. Health care reform will benefit all of us.

As to the Republicans' sudden call for fiscal responsibility, it's too bad that they didn't practice it during the Bush Administration. If they had done so, the price tag for health care reform wouldn't be an issue, unless of course the issue is not really about deficit spending at all, but rather about who is doing the spending.

MARGRIT NOVACK

Flagstaff