My, how Republican apologists do cry when trying to defend the broken promises of their party. Neal Patterson charges (letter, May 14) that my objective is to discredit Republicans. I provided facts that speak for themselves.

He suggests I picked dates unfavorable to Republicans, and should go back to the turbulent Lyndon Johnson war years when federal employment grew significantly. How does this obviate the greatest increase in federal employment in recent history by Republican icon Ronald Reagan?

Patterson claims that, because Republican administrations have been in power longer than Democratic administrations (20 years vs. 12 years), it’s reasonable that Republicans have added more employees. This seems to miss the whole point of Republican Party election promises.

If the party truly represents smaller government, and has had almost twice as long to implement it, why have federal employees increased during Republican administrations, and decreased during Democratic administrations?

Yes, decreased. Despite Mark Leslie’s (letter, May 13) obvious misreading of my letter, the numbers didn’t increase under both parties; they increased by 261,000 under Republicans, and decreased by 388,000 under Democrats.

Even if the current administration has increased the number by 123,000, mostly in the departments of homeland security, justice, veterans affairs, (non-military personnel) defense, and new efforts in consumer protection and financial regulation, Republicans have a long way to go to close the gap and deliver on their promises.

Leslie offers that, since 1946, the average increase in government spending has increased 3.1 percent under Democrats and 2.1 percent under Republicans. In other words, spending under both parties has barely matched inflation.

The real point of my letter was to inform voters of the misleading promises made election after election by political parties. In this case, methinks these defenders of Republicans doth protest too much.

Paul W. Dutram

Waterville

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