Lawmakers need to get realistic on the budget

It is difficult to know where to begin. Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, simultaneously wants to pass a “job creation” act for the construction industry and also wants no budget cuts. Let’s take these fallacies in order:

– The jobs act specifies that resulting construction jobs be funded at prevailing wages, a rip-off that among other things made CityCenter cost three times as much as it should have. Sorry, Mr. Horsford, let the market determine wages, not the bureaucrats.

– No budget cuts? Sorry again, Mr. Horsford. There is at least $6 million in duplicated function spending, as reported by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. Why not eliminate the duplicate spending as a start?

And while you are at it, why not increase support for education? Nevada will never improve economically until we attract new businesses, and that will not happen without real incentives and an educated work force.

The budget needs to be trimmed to reduce waste and spending needs to be re-directed to education and business-relocation incentives. Neither will happen unless Mr. Horsford and other legislators get realistic.

Steve Romeo

Henderson

Double standard

To the editor:

When gasoline was slightly more than $2 per gallon during the Bush administration, all we heard about was Bush, Cheney and Halliburton.

There were squeals for Congress to hold hearings, for punishing taxes against “Big Oil.”

Flash forward.

Gasoline is now pushing $3.20 a gallon and not one story in the press holding the current administration to blame.

Is it just me?

What about the homeless? When Ronald Reagan was president, we heard about the homeless constantly. There were books, newspaper articles and story after story on the TV news.

That was back when the economy was booming.

Now we have record unemployment with people losing their homes like never before and you don’t hear a peep about the homeless problem. We see tents all over the desert and people with signs begging at many street corners, and all we hear from the media is the sound of crickets.

It almost seems like there is some kind of double standard. I guess I’ve learned that problems such as these are only the president’s fault when he is a Republican.

Mike Murphy

Pahrump

Dumb editors

To the editor:

Have the supposed thinking adults at the Review-Journal figured out that charter schools do better than public schools because they choose who goes there? No gang-bangers, no kids with low test scores.

You will never see a charter school take a student with a disability, either.

How hard is this to understand? Are you guys disingenuous or just plain dumb? You guys sure make the argument that Nevada has bad public education — most of you are products of it.

Ronald Bloom

Las Vegas

Sleep time

To the editor:

Regarding the recent negative stories about congressmen who sleep in their D.C. offices:

Anyone doing so has my full support. How could anyone complain of such a selfless act? Take it from a 20-year Nevada resident who hasn’t slept on a proper bed in many years: I know it is not pleasant to sleep on a couch, cot, fold-out bed or futon.

I just cannot believe a “watchdog” group would waste time on this. Hats off to those who sacrifice and stay in their offices. You should be championed for doing so in this economy.

Who wouldn’t want to be in a nice big comfortable hotel bed when far from home and family? Instead, these honorable congressmen tough it out in the office digs. By doing so, they are closer to their work environment. If that doesn’t show dedication, I don’t know what does.

To those “watchdogs” who are making this an issue, I say shame on you. And to those elected to office who choose to sleep there, I say thank you, thank you, and thank you again. You’ve got my vote.

B. Caban

Pahrump

Armed with nukes?

To the editor:

In his column on gun control in the Viewpoints section on Sunday, Vin Suprynowicz makes the absurd assertion that a populace armed with “all the terrible instruments of the soldier is necessary to the security of a free state.”

Now, maybe that was true in the days of black powder and flintlocks, but does he really support arming private citizens with the “all the terrible instruments” of the 21st-century soldier?

I’m no military tactician, but it seems to me that any citizen planning to take on the U.S. armed forces — which, by the way, we used to call treason — should be armed with rocket launchers, tanks, biological agents and personal nukes. I support a citizen’s right to defend himself, but with “all the terrible instruments of the soldier”? Really?

One lesson of Egypt’s revolution is that guns aren’t essential. You can do it with sticks and rocks, but only if the military stays neutral.

Keith Hubbell

Las Vegas