President Obama's Address to Congress

When I listened to President Obama's speech to Congress on Tuesday night [" 'Day of Reckoning,' " front page, Feb. 25], I was awestruck, as I have been most times when I have heard him address the American people.

Our economic recovery and healing of confidence will take some time, but at least we finally are on the right path. We have a president who cares about the well-being of the entire population, who is striving to make the workings of our government transparent, who will do everything possible to restore positive relationships with the world, and who wants the United States to be the great country it once was and can be again. I hope we give him a huge chance.

MARIANNE KETELS

Alexandria

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Did Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) listen to President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night? In delivering the Republican Party's response to the president's address, Mr. Jindal characterized Mr. Obama's plan as raising taxes when the president clearly said there would be a tax cut for many. He suggested that Republicans believed that people could do what was necessary without Washington getting involved but did not say how they would do it without federal money.

He spoke of the huge spending the president proposed in terms of the debt burden it would create. But as I see it, eight years of Republican domination took us from a budget surplus to the largest deficit in U.S. history.

In those years, where were the Republicans objecting to the massive spending for the Iraq war, the no-bid contracts and the lack of responsible oversight of financial markets and warning of an economic meltdown?

JENNIFER STERN