Joseph Reisert’s Jan. 23 column, “Obama thinks his policies are just right, but he’s still getting it all wrong,” demonstrates the pique Republicans are experiencing because President Barack Obama has no intention of going quietly into the night.

Unable to deny the indicators of economic improvement, they are reduced to crying it is too slow. Apparently, their economic policies, which caused the recession and was labeled “voodoo economics” by one of their own presidents, would have done much better.

Using the conservatives’ unemployment indicators (i.e. counting half-time employees and those that have just given up), unemployment has dropped from 17.1 percent to 11.2 percent, just 2.4 percent more than it was prior to the greatest recession. They believe lower taxes (mainly to benefit the corporate 1 percent), less spending (on safety net programs), and less government (i.e. corporate deregulation) would have been preferable.

Conservatives obviously are not able to learn from past mistakes.

Reisert urges the president to forgo the term “right to choose” for the pejorative term “abortion,” thus labeling all those who would hope to plan their family and limit its size to what they can economically support as “baby killers.” Nice try.

If Republicans are so supportive of what these unwanted fetuses could have accomplished, why don’t they favor what two years of free college would allow middle-class and poor children, who can’t afford college, to accomplish?

And, by all means, let’s remain the last developed country to not provide paid sick and maternity leave. It will be interesting to hear how Republican politicians will try to defeat these popular middle-class proposals.

Finally, stretching credence beyond belief, Reisert implies that the president’s call for voting rights for “every single American” must include children, criminals and the mentally ill. Is that really what Reisert thinks the president meant?

Paul W. Dutram

Waterville