To the editor: The letter you printed last week (9/16/05) from Mr. Tom Degan of Goshen was so full of tripe, I feel compelled to respond. If you missed it folks, let me sum it up for you. Mr. Degan says he can't believe the United States "has sunk as low as it has." He contends the federal response to Hurricane Katrina was so poor, because President Bush and "the dirty old dingbats that comprise his administration" have shrunk the government too much. He says if the government were bigger, the response would have been quicker. Mr. Degan, the response was slow, because the government is too BIG. All those different federal agencies can't possibly coordinate with each other in just a day or two. To prove my point, look at the private sector's response. Wal-mart had hundreds of trucks filled with supplies in the disaster areas the next day. Sheriff departments across southern Louisiana got flashlights, food, and ammunition from Wal-mart the day after the storm. Wal-mart is a big company, no doubt, but it's much smaller than the federal government. For the government to reach a size Mr. Degan would approve of, we no doubt would need pretty heft tax increases. You may be willing to pay more, sir, but I assure you I'm already overpaying. In his letter, Mr. Degan also criticizes "the obscene tax cut that benefits the richest two percent." Maybe for some reason you didn't get your tax rebate checks a couple of years ago, Mr. Degan, but everyone I know did, and I didn't hear any complaints. I'd also point out the economy has been growing at a steady clip of three-and-a-half percent or more annually since Bush first implemented his tax cuts, and the economy is now adding 3 million new jobs a year. It's proof the economy does better when you let people keep more of what they earn. By the way, there's a simple reason the richest people get the biggest tax breaksthey pay the most taxes. Of course, no collection of liberal garbage like Mr. Degan's would be complete these days without a criticism of the war in Iraq. An illegal, immoral war, he says, run by President Bush, a war criminal. I evacuated the World Financial Center on 9/11, and watched helplessly as people jumped one hundred stories from those Twin Towers to their deaths. Those deaths were illegal and immoral. We're now fighting the terrorists in Iraq, Mr. Degan, so we don't have to fight them here. Make no mistake, they're not "insurgents" in Iraq they're terrorists. And those weapons of mass destruction at the heart of the war didn't just disappear into thin air they're either still hidden there, or were moved to another country. Saddam Hussein continually defied United Nations resolutions calling on him to show proof he had destroyed those weapons. Were you really willing to take his word for it? God knows the United Nations pussy-footed around long enough to give Saddam Hussein time to move or bury them. Mr. Degan calls Bush a "corrupt, hideous, half witted frat boy," who has done so much damage, fifty years from now the president at that time will still be dealing with that damage. I think the president fifty years from now will thank his or her lucky stars that George W. Bush chose to take the terrorists on, unlike the president before him. President Clinton, whom I must assume Mr. Degan was a huge fan of, was too busy trying to save himself from impeachment, to bother seriously responding to all the terrorist attacks during his two termsthe first Trade Center bombing, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Saudi Arabia, the African embassy bombings, the bombing of the USS Cole. I think fifty years from now, history will marvel at how George W. Bush began the process of democratizing the Middle East, eliminating terrorist groups and havens, and making this world a much safer place. I, Mr. Degan, cannot believe the United States has soared so high. Michael Wallace West Milford