Don't be fooled by Van Drew, Press letter writer says

When Jeff Van Drew ran to represent the 2nd Congressional District in 2018, he ran as a Democrat, and his campaign flyer made the following points: Jeff Van Drew “earned a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood, because he stood up to Republicans who would restrict a woman’s right to choose.” Jeff Van Drew “voted to ensure millionaires pay their fair share — he’ll fight for a tax plan in Congress that will help New Jersey families, not Trump’s cronies.” Jeff Van Drew “voted to ban bump stocks and supports universal background checks on all gun sales.” Those points would argue in favor of voting to reelect Van Drew, except he renounced them by switching to the MAGA agenda of Donald Trump, to whom he pledged “undying support.”

It is clear Van Drew makes whatever points he thinks will get him elected, because if he truly believed in those points, he would have remained a Democrat and would not have switched to the Republican Party. Voters in our district cannot be sure that Van Drew actually believes the campaign points he makes. He could be fooling you just to get elected. Those who voted for him in 2018 were fooled by the campaign points he made then.

Steven Brown

Millville

Too little, too late on jobs

The economy added 108,000 jobs in April, 216,000 in May, 118,000 in June, 144,000 in July, 159,000 in August. Sluggish at best, especially during the summer hiring season. Bidenomics can no longer rely on “recovered lost pandemic jobs.”

Now we are supposed to rejoice because September’s job growth was 254,000? What about the 3½ years of suffering Americans had to go through with high gas prices and high grocery bills? Housing costs are high because mortgage rates remain high, double what they were under Trump, which is why more people are opting to rent instead of buy. The shortage of rental properties is making housing costs skyrocket.

The rate of inflation has come down but is still double what it was under the Trump administration. The rate of increase may have come down, which may help a little going forward, but grocery and gas prices remain high. Americans are waiting for those costs to decrease to Trump-era levels.

So there is no joy in one month’s decent jobs report. It doesn’t make up for 3½ years of pain, and given that the 2023 to 2024 job creation was downgraded by 818,000 jobs, that means Americans cannot trust the jobs report.

David DiBello

Lakewood

Border by the numbers

There has been a lot of noise being made about the border, particularly by the Republican candidates: rapists, murderers, drug smugglers — yadda yadda. No doubt there is a lot of work that needs to happen to fix a broken system. A step in that direction, the strongest border bill ever negotiated by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, was left at the altar when the Republicans walked away from it at the behest of the now Republican presidential candidate. Go figure.

Another misconception being perpetrated by the Republican candidate is that illegal migrants are “mules” hauling drugs into the U.S. That may happen, but the cartels could not live with such inefficiency. Investigative reports from The New York Times, the Cato Institute and Border Patrol data have shown that over 90% of fentanyl seizures occur at controlled border crossings. Over 80% of convicted drug traffickers are U.S. citizens, not illegals. In fact, less than 0.02% of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl at all. Like the cartoon character Pogo noted decades ago: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Another claim very often made by the Republican candidate at his rallies that really sticks in my craw is that he created the “strongest economy in history.” Really. But once again those pesky facts rain on his parade. It turns out he inherited that economy from the Obama/Biden administration. The gross domestic product was essentially the same from the Obama administration to the Republican candidate’s first administration (2.3-2.4%). What the Republican candidate did do was to add $7 trillion to the national debt (before counting pandemic expenditures). Even fellow Republicans Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis gave him credit for that.

Stephen Spahn

Hammonton