Unemployment is higher than it seems

Re: "For team Obama, recovery is always just around the corner," Aug. 5

President Obama's campaign spin on the jobs report is unconscionable rhetoric based on his labor department cooking the books on the number of jobs created and unemployment rates since the president took office

in 2009. Indeed, none of the jobs reports coming from Obama's administration are anywhere near accurate simply because they do not take into account the number of people who have stopped looking for jobs, which would increase the unemployment rate from 8.3 percent to over 11 percent.

Considering the overall number of people not participating in the work force is about 35 percent for one reason or another, the real unemployment rate is closer to 15 percent. Regardless, how can a

substantial increase of jobs created in July result in an increase of unemployment from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent? The answer is obvious: a feeble attempt at labor department jobs report credibility. It's

incredible, however considering the failed public education system's years of intentionally dumbing down students' math skills, it's also understandable.

The underlying dastardly political crimes here are the Democrat-caused economic train wrecks stemming from the housing and financial crash engineered by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's obsession with forced affordable housing beyond the objections of former president Bush, exacerbated by President Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress burying the nation in out of control spending, unbridled government growth, taxes, over-regulation and insurmountable debt.

Daniel B. Jeffs

Apple Valley, Calif.

School vouchers are different from GI Bills

Re: "Pick your restrictions," Aug. 6

Jon Garber confuses school vouchers with the GI Bills. The distinction is simple. The GI Bills were compensation to veterans for military service, to be spent at colleges, some of which were church-related, and thus posed no problem. School vouchers, however, are direct support for K-12 private schools, most of which are pervasively religious institutions. At least 38 state constitutions prohibit tax aid to religious institutions.

It needs to be pointed out that tens of millions of voters from coast to coast have rejected school vouchers or their variants by an average vote of two to one in 27 statewide referendum elections.

Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew full well that taxing citizens to aid religious institutions violates every citizen's religious freedom.

Edd Doerr

Silver Spring