TO THE EDITORS:

This letter is response to Mr. C. E. Pringle's letter, Jan. 11. He asserted that the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was the work of a "veto-proof" Republican congressional majority.

He is incorrect in using that term in relation to the 106th Congress, which passed the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999.

In that Congress, the Senate consisted of 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats and the House breakdown was 223 Republicans and 211 Democrats, with one independent (a bare majority of the 218 needed to "control the House.').

The term "veto-proof" means that one party has a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress. That would mean the Republicans had 67 Senate seats and 290 House seats, which they clearly did not.

It would be accurate to say that both parties were involved in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The law in question, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, passed the House by a final vote of 362-57 (obviously with key Democratic support) and it passed the Senate 90-8 (again with a large number of Democratic votes) and was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

If the repeal of Glass-Steagall was partly responsible for the financial disaster of the recent past, then both parties are responsible for that collapse.

For the record, the last veto-proof majority we had in Congress was the 89th Congress (1965-1967). That Democratic-led Congress passed Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start, aid to cities and an increase in spending on elementary education, a massive overhaul of our immigration laws and the Voting Rights Act.

Much of that progressive legislation is now responsible for the massive deficits facing our country, however well-intentioned.

For example, the U.S. Government will spend over $500 billion on Medicare in 2012 with future costs expected to explode even further. Remember, this was a program that was expected to cost only $10 billion in 1990 (according to "reliable" CBO estimates). And how much did Medicare cost the federal government in 1990? One-hundred billion. Today, that program costs the feds $500 billion.

That is what the last veto-proof majority has bequeathed the nation.

Tom Larkin

Manheim Township