Mr. Bussell’s letter (“The end of America?” March 10) blaming essentially the Democratic Party and the unions for California and the nation’s economic woes trending toward bankruptcy is nothing more then a disguised Republican talking point to distract from the issues.

It doesn’t take unions to bankrupt a company. Non-unionized companies do that quite well all on their own.

The (non-union) banking industry bankrupted itself and us with Republican-sponsored legislation of deregulation in the 1990s, with the old motto that “government gets in the way” and “business can regulate itself.”

We’ve seen the end result of the “free market,” aka non-regulated approach to banking. It crashes, puts people out of work, makes a few CEOs filthy rich — but the new twist was that bankers get a massive taxpayer bailout courtesy of the Bush administration.

As for the tea party, better check who’s been paying their bills and you’ll find its Dick Armey, a full-time corporate lobbyist whose clients include the same banking companies that received the bailouts.

It would seem there’s a big lemon in the tea party.