Email letters, Aug. 29, 2012
Republicans will just make rich richer
This will be an exciting week. We’re going to hear all about how Republicans are going to concentrate heavily on dramatically reducing government regulations and being particularly aggressive on creating jobs. Can we expect to finally hear about which of those regulations are so onerous we must do without them?
Most regulations are meant to protect the public and businessmen from each other. Does this mean that we can no longer count on clean water and air? Will businessmen now be allowed to be predatory in their dealings with us on financial and ethical matters? Just wondering.
So far we haven’t heard much about how Romney will go about creating jobs. It’ll be difficult, because he has long said that government can’t create jobs; that’s the job of the hallowed “job creators.” Maybe he’ll offer up the programs presented by Obama that the Republicans turned down, much of which they previously preferred.
We’ve heard about the necessity to give job creators further tax reductions. I guess that’s to give them more money to work with. Funny, they’ve accumulated a greater percentage of the wealth of the country lately, and few jobs were forthcoming. Maybe they will only do their creation magic for a Republican president.
All reliable statistics conclusively show that lack of demand is our primary economic problem. Folks are deep in debt, earnings are dropping and they’re afraid of losing their jobs and medical insurance.
By far the largest part of our GDP is consumer spending. Romney wants to encourage businesses to invest and hire. If you ran a business, would you expand when customers are scarce and you already had excess capacity? Even if bribes are offered?
The Republican emphasis on jobs is a fraud. It’s just another scheme to make the rich richer. Surprised?
JOHN BORGEN
Grand Junction
Nisley Elementary teachers, students, also deserve kudos
The editorial in Tuesday’s paper praised Scenic Elementary for scoring the best reading gains in the state. It also mentioned that the program costs more and that Scenic students have access to assistance that other schools may not provide and that students come from families with two parents and stable incomes.
Unfortunately, no mention was made of Nisley Elementary; its math scores improved more than any school in the state, without special programs. Nisley students consistently shine, even though 90 percent of them qualify for free lunches and most live at or below the poverty line.
Their teachers and they strive for excellence in spite of the burdens of single-parent families, incarcerated or absent parents and little discretionary income for
tutors or other programs.
Good job, Bears! I’m proud of your teachers and you.
JAN WEEKS
Grand Junction
Tax credit for wind power simply propaganda
Sen. Udall makes some interesting points for electric utilities using wind generation. Unfortunately, the tax credit is just more false conservationist propaganda.
Plainly speaking, wind generation is much more expensive than coal, oil, natural gas or even solar. Let us look at how this tax credit works: The electric utility joins with a wind energy producer to build a wind farm. The utility will buy up to 100 percent of the production from the farm.
The utility then charges the retail customer an extra $2.50 to buy 100 kilowatts of generation from the wind farm. That is 2.5 cents extra, in addition to the 10 cents per kwh the customer is already paying for the electricity he or she is getting from the same source. After all, once the electricity is in the line, it makes no difference where it came from, as far as the meter is concerned.
I am not sure of this, but I believe the wind Production Tax Credit is about 30 percent. Sen. Udall did not mention this in his article. If this credit is dropped, electric utilities will try to justify passing the 30 percent increase on to the consumer. (Let’s see … the average customer uses about 650 kwh per month, 650 kwh at 10 cents per kwh equals $65 per month, plus 30 percent equals $84.50 per month for an electric bill.) Might be time for everyone to install solar panels. That way the 6,000 jobs the senator talks about will be able to go to work installing panels and still make good money.
I worked for an electric utility and listened to our engineers talk about wind power and the fact that unless the federal government paid the biggest part of the cost, wind would never pay for itself. In that regard, nothing has changed.
JOHN S. REID
Grand Junction
LWV to be at Farmers Markets, to hold forum first Tuesday in October
The League of Women Voters of Mesa County invites everyone to participate in our democracy and help keep our community fair, vibrant and strong.
We are announcing several upcoming events. The league will be at the Farmers Market Sept. 6, 13 and 20 to hand out information and register voters.
Look for the Vote411.org banner, a new website which will be open in September, with complete voter information on the election of 2012.
This site is designed to list all national, state and local candidate races, with information specific to Mesa County on ballot issues, as well. Our nonpartisan mission is to get election information out to the public. We encourage everyone who is qualified to vote this year.
Watch for the LWV Voter Guide to be published as an insert in The Daily Sentinel Friday, Oct. 12 with Kids Voting of Mesa County. We look forward to a fair and informative election season.
TANYA TRAVIS
President, LWV of Mesa County
Grand Junction
Talent show requires strict proof of ID, but voting officials cannot
“American Idol” was in town. How exciting!
I could not help noticing, however, how stringent its rules are for participants’ registration than our country’s rules for voters’ registration.
Contestants must have proof of citizenship or permanent residency. Two forms of identification are required; one must be a photo ID. Parents or guardians of younger contestants must also show a government-issued photo ID, as well as other legal papers.
Yet, with voter fraud being a huge problem, states are being sued for requiring proof of citizenship and a photo ID proving people are whom they say are.
Priorities are telling.
L.K. PRICHARD
Grand Junction
Uravan’s centennial picnic deserved more attention
I was very disappointed that The Daily Sentinel and the Colorado governor’s office did not attend the 100th anniversary picnic Saturday, Aug. 25 at Uravan.
I think this would have been the best human-interest story of the time for the Western Slope and the state of Colorado.
Uravan Company and its people went into the Manhattan Project in 1942 to give us the freedom we have today.
ROBERT FREEMAN
(past mayor of Nucla)
Grand Junction
FMS school buses have few riders
I have to agree with Fred Stroh, who wrote the letter to the editor published Sunday, Aug. 19, concerning the Mesa Valley Education Association president’s comment that there are consequences for the community voting against a property tax-raising ballot measure in November. It certainly does sound like a punishment for parents.
There were two different amounts of money saved by shortening bus routes, according to a news feature and the editorial. Which one is it?
I hope the MVEA president saw what I did as I watched buses leaving Fruita Middle School this week. Twelve buses pulled out; all of them were headed east on K Road and not one of the 12 was anywhere near full. The 65-70 passenger buses held 10-12 students or fewer. Surely some routes could have been combined.
To the person who wrote to the You Said It column in the same issue of the paper, parents are paying and paying dearly in taxes, school supplies, helping others with school supplies, fees, clothing, fundraisers and now driving children to school or risking having them walk.
Maybe parents should look into school a little more closely. A reliable source reported a cutback in cleaning all rooms every day. Doesn’t sound very clean to me.
KATHY HURT
Fruita
Political ads reach new lows
Every four years I get good, and fast, at muting political ads. By now it’s intuitive. The ads have always been tacky, but this year they’re not only tacky, but also condescending.
It’s hard to imagine any of us being stupid enough to believe that stuff. They’re mostly lies, and I mistrust them all. Both major parties are guilty.
Mistrust of political parties is nothing new. Even George Washington in his farewell letter warned of their destructive influence and urged his fellow citizens to avoid them.
So, here we are today, listening to tacky, condescending ads every few minutes. It’s obvious Washington’s advice was ignored.
His warning was true. It serves us right.
AL CARLEY
Grand Junction
What would Founding Fathers think of Kiss and Motley Crue?
David Goe’s article in Out and About published Aug. 23 on the “double debauchery” duo, Kiss and Motley Crue, reflects the depraved sense of values characterizing our present pop culture.
First, Goe warns fathers to “lock up your daughters because it’s getting dirty tonight.” We rightly alert whole neighborhoods about a sex offender who has moved in down the street, while glorifying sex offenders who parade their debauchery as entertainment.
Next, Goe suggests stocking up on penicillin before heading to Mack and warns about waking up with smeared face paint which “nobody wants, especially the person you ended up spending the night with” (who thought you were somebody else, anyway).
Finally, Goe encourages jammers to have a blast, or, as that sage Crue crew counsels, “get as rude as possible and don’t let anyone tell you how to live.” (But, Crue, you just told them!)
If George Washington and his contemporaries could have foreseen how today’s pop culture would so enthusiastically trash the meaning and value of the freedoms for which they and so many others have fought, suffered and died, might history be different?
Would Washington have even bothered to cross the Delaware? Might Paul Revere simply have kept his horse stabled? And, might Patrick Henry, rather than proclaiming, “Give me liberty or give me death,” to the Virginia Convention in 1775, instead upchucked on the floor of St. John’s Church in Richmond, wiped his mouth and requested, “Just give me death”?
BILL FORBES
Whitewater
Scott protected voters, Colorado Constitution
I was stunned by Ralph Hicks letter regarding Ray Scott.
I think Hicks believes his views trump the views of 66 percent of the voters in Mesa County and 55 percent of the voters statewide who rejected same sex marriage and civil unions in two separate ballot initiatives in 2006.
These are the voters Ray Scott protected. He also protected the Colorado Constitution, which states the marriage is between one man and one woman, the result of one of those ballot initiatives.
I wonder why Hicks was not so concerned from 2006-2010 when the Democrats controlled the entire state government. If this was so important, why was it not passed then?
Does Hicks realize that the “rights” he wanted in this year’s same sex marriage measure already exist due to the passage of the Designated Beneficiary Act of 2009? What purpose, then, does this past year’s bill serve, except for gotcha politics directed by the president and the governor?
Scott’s opponent has called Scott’s standing up for his constituents on this matter “grandstanding.” The only grandstanding here was by the Democrats. When you don’t have a record to run on and when you have destroyed the economy, the only way to win votes is to distract attention by contriving an end-run around the Colorado Constitution.
If Hicks and the Democrats really think the voters’ minds have changed on this issue, there is a solution. Put it on the ballot. Let the voters of Colorado decide. Only call it what it really is, same sex marriage, and not civil unions.
KEVIN MCCARNEY
Clifton