Don’t overlook Adelson’s many contributions

To the editor:

John L. Smith’s July 24 column about Sheldon Adelson certainly did not reflect the world of Mr. Adelson that we know and are familiar with (“Dizzying profits? Swirling controversy? A day at the office for Adelson”). That world is one in which Mr. Adelson is widely recognized as a passionately devoted family man; dedicated and generous philanthropist to a multitude of charitable institutions and endeavors both to the Jewish community and greater community; caring and compassion supporter of those in need, including our nation’s veterans and wounded warriors, senior adults, children and many others; advocate for democracy and freedom; and patriotic citizen.

We hope that Mr. Smith and the Review Journal will highlight these and other significant and important contributions made by Mr. Adelson to our community, nation and world.

HUGH BASSEWITZ

ELLIOT B. KARP

LAS VEGAS

Dr. Bassewitz is chairman of the board of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. Mr. Karp is the organization’s president and CEO.

Truth distortions

To the editor:

Your newspaper is full of lies and untruths. For one, you continue to quote President Obama out of context, to suit your purpose, when you say that he indicated business leaders did not build “that.” If you listen to his entire speech, especially the sentence before and after, it is clear he was referring to the country’s infrastructure and not the individual’s business.

But last week you printed either letters to the editor or editorials that make the reader believe our president is against businesses and business leaders. He clearly is not against business … .corporate profits are at a record level since his inauguration.

I would like a paper that is honest and doesn’t distort the truth. The lie about what President Obama said is repeated on Fox News and in your paper – just as Karl Rove said to do … repeat, repeat and people will believe it.

Gayle McLachlan

St. George, Utah

Kids first

To the editor:

Unfortunately, the news that Nevada ranked 50th in overall child well-being in the recently released Kids County Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation is not shocking news to Nevadans (July 25 Review-Journal). Nevada continually has been ranked as one of the poorest states when it comes to statistics regarding children and social policy (usually along with states such as Mississippi, which actually are poor). The good news is that we have plenty of room to improve.

Given the current economic strains on our state, it is more important than ever to focus on preventing cuts to necessary programs while we look ahead to see what we can improve upon. Now is the time to consider what kind of state we want to be in the future. Do we want to be a state with well-educated students, well-trained workers, a healthy environment and a functioning infrastructure? Most of us would agree that we do – the question is how we get there.

If we want all of these things, we must come together as a community to demand strong investments in the infrastructure of our government and strong investments in our own human capital. Improving our education system, from cradle to career, is a major factor in improving not only our economy, but also in improving the overall well-being of the children and families in our state. But it is not the only factor.

Children who suffer from abuse and neglect, who have unmet health-care needs or don’t have access to healthy and nutritious foods are not positioned to succeed in school. The answer is not to cut one program in order to fund another – the factors and programs that support children and families are all intertwined, each dependent upon the other to be successful. We must begin to look at new and innovative strategies for these investments, including: revenue building, efficiencies and collaborations with state and local governments, non-profits and businesses.

The well-being of our children depends upon our ability to work together in a non-partisan fashion to build the communities and state that we want to be. And with that approach, working together, in the near future we will be able to report how well Nevada ranked.

Denise Tanata Ashby

Las Vegas

The writer is executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Alliance, an independent voice dedicated to achieving public policy wins in the areas of child safety, health and school readiness.

Fast cash

To the editor:

The sources of our government’s money supply are drying up. The Social Security Trust Fund is already full of government securities. The Chinese and other prosperous nations are no longer so willing to purchase our debt. Hedge-fund and mutual-fund managers and the general public are not interested in government securities – witness the failure of the last few Treasury auctions. Our government needs a new source of cash, fast.

Here’s an idea I’ve heard kicked around. The nation’s combined total deposits in our collective 401(k) plans is in the tens of trillions of dollars. Why not just legislate that in order to maintain the tax-free deposit eligibility, you must maintain 10 percent of your 401(k) in government securities? This would provide a steady stream of trillions for the government to burn through – and when it’s still not enough, just raise it to 20 percent.

If the U.S. Supreme Court says they can force us to buy health insurance, forcing us to buy government securities is a slam dunk.

John Venniro

Las Vegas