Date?

To The Editor:

As a memberof the trustees of the Hartford County Medical Association'sInsurance and Retirement Trust Fund, I have been made acutelyconscious of the marked depreciation of our assets during the pastyear and if our portfolio had not been invested in the finest ofAmerican industries, I could possibly accuse our financialconsultants of gross mismanagement.

However, theyare doing as well as 98 percent of the rest of America's financialadvisors and are not really at fault. The problem is complicated, butno small part of it is directly attributable to our administration inWashington, D.C.

We have aDemocratic president, a Democratic-controlled House ofRepresentatives, and a Democratic-controlled Senate, and the countryhas gone from bad to worse during the past year. Fiscalirresponsibility, obeisance to labor unions, and a total disregard ofthe effects of inflation are only a few signs of the incompetence,nay the impotence, of our present administration.

Unfortunately,we are faced with two more years of such ineptitude, and businesscommunity as well as the American public are coming more and moredisenchanted. We urgently need an energy program, a firm control oninflation, and a cessation of our program of printing more and moredollars to meet our needs. We need a courage and an expertise that issadly lacking in our capital today.

Frankly, Ibelieve that our president means well but as a political animal he isas concerned, or perhaps more concerned, about his chances ofreelection in 1980 as he is about his performance during his presentterm. His current decisions are influenced to some extent by what hehe thinks the American public will think of them in the year1980.

If ourAmerican presidents were elected for a single term of six years andhad no opportunity for a second term, they would act as a presidentshould act; namely, fearless and beholding to no one, determined todo the right as they see the right. Their entire interests could beconcentrated on their single term and be inspired to do a job "welldone" providing this country with an extraordinary administration andcertain immortality for themselves.

Charles E. Jacobson Jr., M.D.

45 Wyllys St.

Manchester, CT