Pepco customers expect better service, not higher bills

Re: "Experts: Pepco customers may have to pay more for better service," Aug. 22

Like many people in Maryland, the mere mention of Pepco makes my blood boil, and Hayley Peterson's article was no exception.

Customers don't need to be energy experts, lawmakers, or industry professionals to agree with the obvious point made by Rajnish Barua, executive director of the National Regulatory Research Institute: improvements require money. However, our obvious point is the money should come from Pepco'sbillions of tax-sheltered profits.

I don't personally know the three people who told the MarylandPublic Service Commissionthat they are willing to pay more for electricity. I am one of thousands who are not -- and sent commissioners a letter saying so.

Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner's description of the cause of Pepco's vulnerabilities is old hat. Had Pepco started underground wiring when I moved to Gaithersburg 20 years ago, they'd be done by now. Pepco's excuse that it's too expensive to start now is self-propagating.

Doreen Turczyn-Toles

Gaithersburg

Repeated deployments put unbearable burden on troops

The U.S. Armyreported that38 solders killed themselves in July. On average, one American soldier commits suicide every day, and requests for medical discharges have more then doubled.

I served two years in the U.S. Army, and spent nine months on the front line during the KoreanWar.I also spent more than three years in various German concentration camps and witnessed a number of suicides

Wemust recognize that there is a limitto what a human beingcan tolerate.No soldiercan endure multipletours of duty in a war zone without suffering serious adverse mental and/orphysical consequences. Our president, members of Congress,leaders of the military and the American public are responsible for allowing this inhuman and unfair condition to prevail in our armed forces.

I am outraged that this important issue is totally ignored by our politicians.

We always had a volunteer army. However, the draft was instituted during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.As a result, the burden of war was shared by the whole nation, as it should be.

Ruben Moller

Wheaton

Nothing will satisfy Obama's spending appetite

Once again, President Obama asks the wealthy to pay more in taxes. What else is new?

Being of humble means, I wrestle with the president's constant harangue about the wealthy not paying their fair share. But I have come to the conclusion that people of means could never pay enough to satisfy this president's insatiable appetite to spend other peoples' money.

He also feels that the oil companies are making record profits, so they should lose their tax breaks and ante up more cash to feed his spending spree. I don't believe that the oil companies get any more deductions than General Electric which, unlike the oil companies, paid no federal corporate taxes last year.

If the road to hell is paved with good intensions, this president is laying more asphalt than any other president in U.S. history.

George J. Pitonyak

Kitty Hawk, N.C.