The Legislature, for instance

Re “Everything in the country is broken’’ (Opinion, Aug. 13): Yes, the Massachusetts Legislature is stunningly incompetent at addressing the problems facing the state. The eternal funding imbalance for public education is a good example. It is also true that the public is getting the legislature that it apparently wants. How many incumbents have been voted out in the last 20 years? “Commonwealth’’ of Massachusetts? A ghost. Do you suppose that the citizens of Weston have a hint of enthusiasm for higher taxes to improve school funding in Brockton? Complaints about the roads were met by repeal of the 2013 bill to keep the gas tax indexed to the need for it and also by increasing complaints. Our governor, in classic moderate GOP stance, is “concerned’’ about everything but not enough to find money to fix anything.

Wish us luck in the next 20 years as we deal with climate change and destruction of coastal properties. Do you think people in Brockton should care? Should the governor be concerned?

Michael Alexander

Newton Upper Falls

You forgot the planet

Even though the list of what’s broken that Margery Eagan quotes is accurate (“Everything in the country is broken,’’ Aug. 16), it leaves out the most important problem of all. This one will make all those others moot points if not addressed: Our inability to turn away from continued mass consumption, endless economic growth on a finite planet, and overuse of every natural resource is already heating up the planet beyond human endurance.

A complete breakdown of the biosphere that sustains us all is what lies ahead if we continue to focus only on the immediate and keep ignoring the long term. Although we cannot ignore that list of issues, we must come to realize that it is but a subset of a problem that our very existence depends on solving . . . before it’s too late.

Rick Cutler

Arlington