Spare no one from misery of DMV
To the editor:
I agree with the Dec. 12 letter from A.J. Maimbourg concerning driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
My husband and I recently moved back to Nevada. When we tried to get our driver’s licenses, I had to produce numerous documents to prove my maiden name. I was born and raised in California, and because I was married before I married my present husband, the DMV demanded divorce papers to prove the name change. What papers do the illegal immigrants have to produce?
If they want privileges from the United States, they need to become United States citizens legally. What part of "illegal" do our leaders do not understand?
VIRGINIA McCALLISTER
HENDERSON
A bad deal
To the editor:
Sunday’s commentary, "Tax credit critical to Nevada’s future," by lobbyists and ex-Govs. Robert List and Richard Bryan, makes it sound like solar power plants represent the best thing that has happened to our economy since the casino building boom. But their promise of economic growth, tens of thousands of jobs and energy independence is an empty one.
The reality is the cost of power from these plants is about 9 cents per kilowatt hour more than that from gas generators. For the 500,000 megawatt-hours-per-year Crescent Dunes plant in Tonopah, that represents more than a billion dollars added to our electric bills over its 25-year contract. And that is just for one plant.
An honest economic evaluation would show that solar power will actually shrink the Nevada economy. Spending more of their income on electric bills means consumers will have less to spend elsewhere.
It’s time to look at the total costs of solar power, not just the inflated claims of the lobbyists and politicians.
TOM KELLER
HENDERSON
Pay for performance
To the editor:
The Nevada State Education Association, led by President Lynn Warne, is at it again, trying to push higher taxes on Nevada businesses. She is demanding that even companies that are losing money be required to pay the tax. She said the initiative is about "dedicated revenue for K-12 funding, corporations paying their fair share and all of our children being given an opportunity to succeed" (Dec. 8 Review-Journal).
Ms. Warne should look at the record of the school districts that she oversees. The U.S. Department of Education last month rated Nevada’s public schools last of all the states in graduation rates at 62 percent, and only the District of Columbia and American Indian schools ranked worse. Our fourth- and eighth-graders also do not test well in math and science.
Ms. Warne should get out of her office and look around at what is going on in the community. Businesses are closing at an alarming rate and our retail shopping malls are full of vacancy signs. While we do not need to burden companies with increased taxes, there is a much bigger reason why the school districts should not be given any more tax dollars from the citizens of Nevada: The big government school monopoly that Ms. Warne runs is failing to do its job: teaching our children.
Until we see an improvement in test scores and the graduation rates improve, the schools do not deserve any more tax money. Ask yourself, would you buy a product that only worked 62 percent of the time? The Nevada public school districts should be recalled. We should demand from the state that we allow private industry to compete and realize that a monopoly never serves the public interest.
As with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which recently went through a thorough review of its operations, so should all of the Nevada school districts. Let’s do it for the children.
MICHAEL O. KREPS
LAS VEGAS
Pain before salvation
To the editor:
We need to go over the "fiscal cliff" now. That may seem to be heretical for us conservatives, but there is a method to this madness. We, as Americans, need to see what life will be like under a high-tax, high-deficit, inflation-ridden liberal society for a few years. We, as Americans, need to feel the immediate pain of decreased standards of living, decreased quality and access to health care and decreased opportunities for employment, all the while seeing the same trillion-dollar deficits racked up under this administration.
At the same time, Republicans need to refuse to increase the debt ceiling. The president told us that he could solve our deficit problems with this untruthful "balanced approach." Well, Mr. President, if you make the painful cuts you talked about during the campaign, that additional revenue and those cuts will square the deficit immediately, making massive borrowing unnecessary.
It is obvious from the last election that the majority of Americans cannot think beyond their next check – being it of the payroll or entitlement variety. Maybe this short-term pain will allow us to think more clearly and see the immense damage these liberal lies are doing to this country. As I said, let’s go over this cliff, as it may allow us to save ourselves down the road.
JOSEPH SCHILLMOELLER
LAS VEGAS
Diet COLA
To the editor:
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, asked President Obama to change the inflation technical adjustment to reduce cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security retirees to slow the growth of benefits and reduce the budget deficit.
In February 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan proposed to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and cover the federal deficit by trimming Social Security benefits.
For many years, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index analysts have lied about cost-of-living increases with impunity to reduce COLAs to low-income Social Security retirees, and next year’s 2013 Social Security increase will be 1.7 percent, reducing the federal deficit on the backs of senior retirees.
GERARD A. SANCHEZ SR.
LAS VEGAS
