Regarding the Nov. 10 front-page article “GOP’s sprint to the finish”:
Congress returned this week for a five-week lame-duck session, and there’s a lot left to do. Government funding runs out after Dec. 11, and the defense policy bill, the farm bill and a lapsed intelligence collection law are all still pending.
A Post analysis showed that even with extra recesses and government shutdowns leaving Congress empty for weeks, “the number of days House lawmakers have been in session is actually fairly typical” compared with recent Congresses. But the article noted that as of Sept. 22, Congress had fewer bills signed into law than any other session of the last 30 years.
After extended breaks and little progress, members now ask Americans to believe the year’s biggest bills will get a serious look in a few weeks. I doubt it. Hurried bills are at risk of being poorly assessed and barely debated. Americans pay for that later.
Showing up is part of the job. I would like my representative to explain why the House has crammed some of the most important annual bills into the last weeks of the session. You should ask that, too.
Robert Smith, Howell, Michigan
Teach kids how to cook
Aaron Carroll’s Nov. 10 op-ed, “This solution to obesity doesn’t work. America still eats it up,” cited data showing that teaching kids how to cook doesn’t have an effect on pediatric obesity rates.
Carroll argued that if the goal is to get people to lose weight, nothing can really compete with GLP-1s. I agree that if you are measuring a one-off intervention (though the need for it will probably be lifelong), then GLP-1 drugs are certainly highly effective for most people. However, learning to cook healthy food creates a foundation of knowledge that people can lean on for years, which is not something that can be easily measured as a single intervention in a study.
In my own patients, I have seen that the people who know how to cook are more easily able to adapt to dietary changes and tend to have longer-term weight-loss success than people who have to eat most of their meals out or eat ultra-processed frozen meals.
While GLP-1 medications certainly have their place in health care, cooking your own meals from whole foods is probably much cheaper and healthier in the long run.
Dawn Harris Sherling, Boca Raton, Florida
The writer, an internal medicine physician, is the author of “Eat Everything: How to Ditch Additives and Emulsifiers, Heal Your Body, and Reclaim the Joy of Food.”
Tariffs are ruining cocktail hour
I share LP O’Brien’s laments. In her Nov. 10 op-ed “Why is your cocktail so expensive? Ask the White House,” she noted bar and restaurant owners’ consternation over disrupted supply chains and bottle orders for the holidays. But pity the cocktail fans, too. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on international suppliers have filtered down to classic cocktails at an astounding rate.
I recently attended a gala reception in an established D.C. venue, and not one of its four bars had dry vermouth available for a classic martini. They also had a notably limited variety of gins. Whether this had to do with tariffs driving the price of liquor up or changing palates, let me be the first to say that the classic cocktail needs to be resurrected and not adulterated by adding “peppermint.”
The strength of the spirits market will be accelerated not only by removal of trade restrictions but also by support for the classic cocktails.
William R. Ayers, Bethesda
A fresh start for education
As The Post reported in the Nov. 9 news article “Hinojosa’s win puts Texas education reforms to the test,” Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa (D) has promised to replace the state’s education commissioner, Mike Morath, on the first day of her administration as part of her plan to rethink Texas’s education policies.
Texas is not the only state choosing new education leadership. In January, California Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra (D) will also appoint an education commissioner for the first time, and this person will assume many of the responsibilities currently held by the elected state superintendent of public instruction.
The key question is what kind of leadership a state needs to move its education system forward. I was a finalist for Kentucky commissioner of education in 2020, so I understand the process of selecting a new state education leader. The current moment, following the midterm elections, offers new leaders a chance to rethink American education policy. States have become very good at identifying underperforming schools. However, they have been far less successful at ensuring that all schools have great teachers, adequate resources, meaningful community engagement and opportunities for children to flourish.
The new education leaders in our nation’s two most populous states must be results-driven educators with the political acumen to advance community-based change and innovation.
Julian Vasquez Heilig, Detroit
The writer is a former provost of Western Michigan University and a former dean at the University of Kentucky’s College of Education.
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