The current Republican Congressional investigation into the events surrounding the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi is the perfect example of how the Republican Congress has played obstructionist during the entire Obama Administration. In the past two years, the House Republicans have cut the worldwide U.S. embassy security budget by $258 million. This is a huge amount considering the shape the world is in, and the various threats faced by the United States.

On one hand, the Republicans play up the threats to the United States abroad, and on the other hand they wouldn't dare raise taxes on the most wealthy in America to pay for embassy security. What's their idea? Just cut spending.  It doesn't matter what the spending is for, because they don't care.  Just cut spending.

The Republicans believe in letting the average Joe bear the brunt of the sacrifice. Them sacrifice?  Right. Just like in the Iraq War when our boys and girls got sent to combat without proper body armor, the Republican stand was "you go to war with the army you got." Pure and simple, they don't know the difference between reading Ayn Rand "The Fountainhead" and good governance. The Republicans do not know how to govern and they have a huge deficit in good governance principles. They are ideologues, and ideologues are just dogmatic ignorant folk.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Darryl Issa, the two Republicans leading the Benghazi investigation, were leading the charge to cut embassy security the past two years.  Scott Desjarlais, the Republican Congressman for the 4th Tennessee District, has claimed these hearings are preventing him from debating his Democratic challenger, Tennessee State Senator Eric Stewart.  We definitely need oversight, but it seems we cannot trust the Republicans to maintain oversight of themselves, and they are running the investigation. 

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Mr. Durham,  With all due respect, Sir, what do you suggest we do when we run out of money?
You obviously don’t like the Republican’s idea of cutting spending, so what’s your plan when the money dries up?  You do realize that the Fed is printing more money as we speak because we’ve already run out of money, right? We’re broke.  Something has to go.  We can’t continue spending like drunken sailors because it will literally cause the end of America as we know it.  

So what do you think we should do?  And before someone says “Tax the rich” let me just say that you could take 100 percent of all the rich people’s money in this country and it wouldn’t even put a dent in the deficit. 

We, as a nation, have to get a grip on reality and face the truth.  We’re broke and we’re going to have to cut out a lot of things before our financial health gets any better.  The longer we put it off the worse it will be. 

Curtis Smith
Ringgold

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Mr. Durham,
One hundred and forty-nine Democrats and 147 Republicans voted for HR2055, the bill that cut spending which included embassy security. I'm no fan of the stupid party or the evil party, but you should be fair in your criticism and show they worked together on this. It's almost as if both parties came together to do something that wasn't good for our country. I know. I sometimes say crazy things. 

I'm going to take a guess that someone who says "they don't know the difference between reading Ayn Rand "The Fountainhead" and good governance" hasn't read any of Ayn Rand's novels or papers. Your attacks would have more force, or at least make sense, if you were informed about more than one aspect of Objectivist philosophy. 

Brent Stott

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The thrust of Mr. Durham's comments seems to be that the Republicans are somehow responsible for the deaths at our Libyan consulate because of a $258 million budget cut. That proposed cut (along with proposed cuts in most all other areas of government) was simply in the budget proposed by the Republicans and was never acted on by the Senate and never implemented. 

The absence of security at the consulate was the result of the Obama administration refusal to provide it despite repeated requests from our ambassador. Its refusal was based on the fact that it didn't want to give the impression that it was needed, therefore exposing the administration failures. 

Lynn Miller
Chattanooga

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Mr. Durham, I am guessing it would be safe to assume that you are a Democrat by your harsh tone in blaming Republicans for everything wrong in this world. I would like to first and foremost remind you that the Obama administration had a Democrat controlled house and senate when he took office and for his first two years in office. While I will admit there has been no effort made by either party to work together the past few years just let me add, at this moment there are a total of 27 bills that have passed congress that the Democrat senate refuse to even vote on, so the effort of not working together clearly goes both ways.  

Now to your topic. The reason of the investigation is a plain and simple one, there have been multiple stories and reason given by multiple people in charge that were  filled with total inaccuracies and different findings. Just as in the Fast and Furious debacle Americans want answers for the death of an American, sorry if that means questioning the so called leaders of this country. There has not been a level of transparency by the Obama administration as we were promised (just another of many things he promised without doing) if there had of been there would be no need for the investigation.  

Dee Layne