Average folks don’t stand a chance

The Review-Journal’s Sunday editorial, “Personal gain,” barely touched on a growing concern to taxpayers. In the piece, an elected member of the state’s Board of Regents — who is also a local police captain — was taken to task for flashing his badge to get a perk.

While this is shameful, there is a much more important issue that most hard-working citizens are not aware of. According to recent reports, we have more than 511,000 elected officials nationwide. Add to this the more than 25 million government bureaucrats and workers at all levels of government, and even the abused taxpayer can smell trouble brewing.

For example, let’s take a look at some approximate figures for 2007 for Clark County — supplied to me by county officials.

There are 46 elected officials, five appointed officials, 6,726 full-time employees and 2,804 part-time employees.

In 2007, the budgeted salaries for the full-timers was estimated at $532,871,792 and for part-timers $15,387,466. In addition, $184,192,487.77 was budgeted for benefits and retirement costs. These figures do not include the cost of salaries and benefits to the University Medical Center employees, which is more than $300 million annually.

In addition, the city and state employees all get paid, too, and those numbers when added to the above are staggering.

For a real scare, take a look at what is known as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, which all government entities have. The state of Nevada’s report is more than 200 pages.

When you start adding this all up and then throw in a dose of ruling class arrogance, average folks don’t stand a chance.

BRUCE FEHER

LAS VEGAS

Double standard

To the editor:

Recently, you published a letter from a local teacher whose students’ question for the Democratic debate was rejected by CNN because the class representative might have supported a Republican. Now it is revealed that CNN stacked the deck against the Republican debaters by placing Democrats in the position of asking the questions.

This is typical of the liberal double-standard that demands victory at any cost.

ROBERT RAIDER

HENDERSON

Pure garbage

To the editor:

I was absolutely disgusted while driving up Interstate 15 to Mesquite recently. There is an unbelievable amount of trash littering both sides of the highway.

It’s a shame that Republic Services is such a poor corporate citizen that it would allow a giant buildup of garbage to make our highway and state look so poor. Imagine if this was the first trip you were taking into our beautiful state and you encountered miles of trash strewn across our desert. No, “miles of trash” is not an exaggeration. It looks as though someone has opened up the back of a Republic Services truck and let all the contents out.

Where are our elected officials to police this matter? Why isn’t the County Commission asking Republic to clean up this mess? It clearly is from their trucks not being properly covered. If a local construction company can be ticketed for an uncovered load, then why not Republic? The company should be held accountable for every piece of trash and fined accordingly. The cleanup should be billed to Republic and they should not be allowed to pass the charge on to the taxpaying public.

DAVID RAMSAY

LAS VEGAS

Democrats in charge

To the editor:

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) was passed in 1969 and was aimed at about 155 very wealthy families who used legal deductions to avoid paying any federal income tax. The AMT disallows certain deductions and credits. It was not adjusted for inflation; as a result, over the years it has hit a growing number of middle-income taxpayers. More than 4 million were subject to it in the 2006 tax year, and that could soar to 25 million this year without congressional action.

Thus far, the current Democrat-controlled Congress has failed miserably to correct it and, most likely, millions of middle-income taxpayers may have to pay as much as $2,000 more in federal income tax for 2007. Who do we have to thank for this situation? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Failure to enact a long-term fix for the AMT, failure to make permanent the Bush tax cuts that have reduced income tax rates for all taxpayers, and the failure to restrain the growth of federal spending will cause voters to make sure that Democrats do not control both houses of Congress after the 2010 election.

Could this Congress be any more incompetent? Will the control of Congress by Democrats last only one or two congressional terms?

What worries me most is, how much damage to the economy and to our wallets can they do over the next three years?

S.G. Hayes Sr.

LAS VEGAS