Letters: June 23, 2019

Thomas the pick from legislator

Lisa Thomas is my choice for Richland City Council Position 5.

I have worked closely with Lisa on several local and state issues. She has shown passion and diligence in all instances. She is an RN and this caring attribute has been on display whenever she assumes the role of being a problem solver.

Richland needs a fiscal conservative in dealing with the city’s budgetary issues. She has exhibited this attribute as well.

Lisa was raised in Richland and knows the historical aspect of her community. She is running to unselfishly improve her community. She has a relationship with a multitude of Tri City political figures and will be able to leverage these contacts while being a leader in Richland. She is a mother of three and is quite aware of the challenges she and many others face in making a good life for her family. She has invaluable life experiences that have positioned her to best serve you.

She is my choice for Richland City Council Position 5, and I strongly endorse her candidacy.

Way too many problems for No. 1

How can a state be ranked No. 1 to live in when: You have hundreds of homeless people living under bridges and alleys (especially Seattle). Seattle now a sanctuary city for illegals. One of the highest gas taxes (a 60 cents a gallon), more money than they know what to do with and they still want to add taxes. Their main goal is for a state income tax. They have raised millions from the sale of marijuana, lotteries and still don’t have money for our schools??

I could go on and on but I leave you with one important fact. Our state is run by one county; the other 38 do not have a say on the main issues. That one county is King County with a population of approximately 2 million people, the majority of which is one party. Our two U.S. senators come from that area. So if we went by popular vote instead of electoral college, the other parties would not have a say.

Whoever comes up with these ratings must go only by statistics and not facts!

Snake River dams vital part of us

The continuing dust-up over the future of the Snake River dams has gone on far too long. Unfortunately, we seem to be lecturing the converted.

Nearly 20 years ago, I attended a “Save our Dams” rally on a Columbia River bridge, and since then the vital benefits these dams provide have been discussed ad infinitum. The time has arrived to terminate the expensive and totally disasterous notion of breaching, now and forever, and focus on fish restoration solutions that actually work, many of which are being ignored by a hard core cadre of environmental and political fanatics through lies and distortions. If successful, they would no doubt go after the Columbia River dams and reservoirs of all kinds.

These self-anointed experts hypocritically use the power generated by the dams; the products grown, irrigated and shipped under the purview of the dams; and flood risk management and navigation/recreation in the shadow of the dams. It is clear we are not defending just our farming, irrigation, shipping and hydropower, but our culture, economic future and way of life.

GOP tax changes ‘unsustainable’

Recent analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington think tank, shows the president and Republicans’ new tax law favors corporations so radically that twice as many companies paid no federal taxes in 2018, despite billions of dollars in profit.

On average, 30 corporations paid no taxes in the preceding nine years. After the new tax law, 60 large corporations paid no taxes in 2018.

Corporations also reaped the benefits of a tax rate slashed from 35 percent to 21 percent in Trump’s tax law, and exploited various deductions, tax credits and rebates.

The president insisted before his law was passed that the corporate tax cut would pay for itself by triggering a boom in business operations that would lead to increased taxes on ballooning income.

An April Government Accountability Office report called the “federal government’s current fiscal path ... unsustainable.” The cost alone on the national debt runs $896 million each day.

The president’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow insists that “economic growth” has already “paid for a good chunk” of the tax cuts. The budget outlook is “not as bad as many people say.”

It was pointed out that Kudlow’s declaration defies data from his own administration.

Did Rick’s piano lead to tariff feud?

According to today’s NYT, “Trump Forged a Love for Tariffs Battling a Booming ’80s Japan” (5/16): this president had bid on the piano used in the movie “Casablanca.” A Japanese collector outbid Trump who was losing multi-millions of dollars in ventures and having a ghost writer compose fiction (The Art of the Deal) during this time.

Losing the chance to have the piano from Rick’s Place fueled the 45th’s anger toward the east, particularly in the area of tariffs, which he bore in his craw all these years. Oh-oh.

So now American consumers and especially the American farmers must bear the brunt of suffering for one narcissist’s obsession to get even with Asia for a movie artifact in Japan instead of Trump Tower?

Such is the “stable genius” of a petty individual who inflicts economic pain on Americans but continues to enjoy the support of almost half of the country. How to figure?

Could Midwestern farmers be looking back to a more salutary era, saying (little recompense), to paraphrase Rick from the film’s ending, “We’ll always have Obama?”

Congress key to immigration fix

Tom Adams’ letter of May 15 shared his alarm regarding the dire situation of literally thousands of “illegal” immigrant families and their children. He attributes the situation to only one political party but not the one (Obama administration), which imposed the family separation policy, with even more austere and horrendous conditions than exist today. He also assumes that the children he has or is seeing were brought here by their parents and were not kidnapped, sold into slavery, or, if accompanied by their parents, weren’t simply tools to gain entry.

I blame Congress as a whole with special emphasis on the Democrats for foot dragging and intentionally inflaming the situation for purely political reasons and thus exacerbating the plight of the families and children involved. Finger pointing over, what do we do?

Additionally, in 24 years of military service, I never saluted Lady Liberty, saw her draped over a soldier’s casket, placed hand over heart when she passed as a parade float, or knew that (Emma) Lazarus poem, The New Colossus, (which is) on Liberty’s base, was a part of the U.S. Constitution, which I took an oath to “support and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Got my copy out and checked.

Vaping became my life-saving choice

I smoked cigarettes for 20 years and was on the same ugly path as my father. It didn’t really matter that I smoked half as many as he did per day, it was still going to be my end. My only choice was to keep trying to quit or likely die as he did.

Well, I started vaping in March of 2011 and I haven’t touched a cigarette since. In that time, I have lived in North Carolina, Indiana and now Washington. Not one of these states have recognized these life-saving devices as anything better than an ugly, smelly, deadly cigarette. Stand outside with the smokers. You can’t do that here.

Oh, and just like the taxes we got from cigarette companies to make up for the medical costs to the states, we’re going to tax those ugly, life-saving devices not because there’s a reason to but because that vapor kind of looks like smoke. Eight years I’ve been vaping. I love it. My wife loves it. My wallet loves it. My state... my nation... not so much. Honestly, I don’t get it, and I also don’t really need your approval. I’m not going back to smoking.

Here’s how to explain $1 billion

It has recently been pointed out to me that many people do not realize the vast difference between a million and a billion. A million seconds is only 11.6 days. A billion seconds is 31.7 years. By my calculations, a million one-dollar bills laid end to end would extend about 95 miles. A billion one-dollar bills laid end to end would extend about 95,000 miles, which means that the money would stretch around the Earth at the equator almost four times.

The message here is that in a fair society, there would be many millionaires, but no billionaires. Many couples, if they work for 40 years and save a reasonable amount of money, can end up with a million dollars, or close to it. But if a couple or an individual ends up with a billion dollars, a lot of people are getting cheated.

The math presented here, and its implications, will probably not be understood or appreciated by some Republicans.