Letters to the Editor 7/5

Rethinking government

If there’s a silver lining to the state budget crisis, it is that we are being forced to rethink the way government operates. Rather than repeat the failed ideas of the past, like raising taxes and mortgaging our children’s future, some state lawmakers like Sam Blakeslee are coming up with innovative solutions.

For instance, Assemblyman Blakeslee’s ACA 3, which recently cleared its first policy committee hurdle, would bring real fiscal accountability to the process of passing state general obligation bonds measures. … something that’s been missing for years.

Instead of running up the state’s credit card and worrying about how to pay for it later, ACA 3 would require initiative bond measures in excess of $1 billion to include a funding source. The source would have to be identified in the ballot title and summary, so voters can be informed of the fiscal implications.

This pay-as-you-go approach is one of many critical reforms needed to get state finances back on track.

Kudos to Assemblyman Blakeslee for proposing it and working with his colleagues across the aisle to get it moving through the legislative process.

Sylvia Huth

Cambria

Using algebra daily

I listen to a local radio station quite often, and I cringe every time I hear the statement, “You will never use algebra in your life.”

This statement is entirely untrue. We use algebraic concepts every day when we balance a check book, figure out how many hours it will take us to travel 300 miles, decide if we have enough money to purchase something that is 40 percent off, or any time we are solving for some unknown.

It is difficult enough to get children to understand why they need to learn something without the media — in this case a radio station many children listen to — telling them they don’t need a skill that is necessary to problem-solve throughout life.

It is also a known fact that the United States has fallen behind many other nations in the world in careers that involve science, math and technology. If you don’t believe me, check out the graduates from UCSB and Cal Poly who obtained master’s or doctoral degrees in engineering; most of them were not residents of this country.

It is very sad to think we have a local radio station encouraging less education.

Jack Zile

San Luis Obispo

Price of death penalty

Thank you, John Van de Kamp, for doing the math for us regarding the cost of the death penalty in California. Yes, it costs too much to kill people, and the real costs are not calculated in dollars, but in our souls.

Executions are a barbaric form of vengeance that have no place in a modern democracy. Violence begets violence and killing teaches killing.

Let’s save a bunch of money and assure our public safety by using existing law to incarcerate violent offenders without the possibility of parole, and abolish the death penalty in California now.

John McAndrew

San Luis Obispo chapter, California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty

Missing the big picture

The “Entrance fee an option for Montańa de Oro” story missed the big picture. On June 15, the Legislative Budget Conference Committee voted to reduce the budget for state parks by $70 million. A deeper cut is proposed by the governor for fiscal year 2010-11.

A total of 220 state parks are threatened with closure. The only hope for funding state parks appears to be a surcharge on Californians’ vehicle license fees that would keep parks open and provide free access to all state parks.

Go to www.savestateparks.org for more information.

Norma Wightman

Morro Bay

Higher taxes a bad plan

Trial lawyer Don Ernst (Viewpoint, June 23), has it backwards when it comes to raising revenue for the state of California. He should support the Republicans’ efforts to hold down our taxes.

When you lower taxes, it gives people more money to spend, which puts more people to work who will pay more in taxes, which raises revenues. Is the tax code meant to punish achievers or raise money?

Michigan, like California, spent more money than it took in, so to solve the problem, what did Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm do? You guessed it — raised taxes. Now Michigan is almost a third-world country with 14.1 percent unemployed as of last May. The producers moved out.

Texas has a very friendly tax rate, and last month the unemployment rate dropped from 7.1 percent to 6.2 percent. Utah, another low tax state, has an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent.

It does not take a genius to see that raising taxes will only make the problem worse, so hang in there, Sam Blakeslee, and the rest of you Republicans.

Ralph Bush

Arroyo Grande

New health care system

I noted with some amusement that the health insurance industry is coming to the aid of their beleaguered customers, magnanimously cutting premiums by 1.5 percent in the coming year! Holding this gesture up against the 6 percent rise we have enjoyed each of the last couple of years, honestly I’m underwhelmed.

Don’t let this embarrassingly obvious smoke screen deter us from our president’s goal of affordable, efficient, effective health care for all.

I’m not sure a government- run system would be the most effective, however. With all due respect, I don’t want my health care to look like the DMV.

How about a system of mandated care levels, premium caps, coverage guarantees and regulations within which the free market could do its thing? A win-win situation, only one that prevents the obscene wins the industry giants have enjoyed at our expense.

American innovation is a really good thing. I just hope that someday, maybe, we will learn that our endearing capitalists cannot be expected to regulate themselves for the common good.

Allen Root

San Luis Obispo

Thanks for warning

This letter is in response to David Hardy Liljestrand’s letter of June 22.

Thank you, David. I am making copies of your letter to give to my grand-daughters and their friends. Your letter is very inspiring. You are exactly right: drugs are demonic. Kids do not realize this. Most think drugs are cool. By hearing this from you (how you wasted your life), perhaps it will sink in.

If you have saved at least one person (I think it will be more), then you have done a wonderful service to the community by writing this letter. At least you didn’t die before you found out about how evil drugs are, which could very likely have happened. Hopefully you have time to really spread the word.

Judith L. Wiltse

Nipomo

Benefit of the doubt

Anti-abortionists who hate and kill are no different than the Kmer Rouge, or the Hutus. They believe that they are justified in following through on their own personal rage with violence and murder.

What authority gives them the right to be the judge and executioner for another person? Only their own ego! They have no god but themselves.

There are many people in our country today who get worked up and become emotionally unstable about ideas they do not even fully understand.

If what you believe is right and is based on ideas that are true, it should stand up to scrutiny and argument.

If what you believe needs to be accepted unconditionally, be alert! The underlying premises that support your beliefs may be false — in which case you could be wrong, not right, and might be responsible for terrible mistakes.

Better to let God decide the rights and wrongs in our hearts and give other humans the benefit of the doubt.

Katherine Koch

Los Osos