Taxing ourselves out of recession
Kudos for the Feb. 14 editorial “Drooling Democrats,” on the state Legislature’s plans to raise our taxes.
I read the front-page story of the Clark County section “Opinions about taxes will be aired in Olympia” and almost had a heart attack. Columbian reporter Kathie Durbin dutifully reported that state Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, among others, was proposing to tax our way out of this recession with not a mention about how asinine that sounds. Where do you start?
Thankfully, the editorial did a masterful job of getting my heart back to a regular rhythm.
Robert Dean
Vancouver
Larch is part of the solution
Regarding Ronald Morrison’s Feb. 11 letter, “Remember purpose of incarceration,” yes, let’s remember. We should be correcting in our correctional facilities and reforming in our reformatories. That’s exactly what the Larch Corrections Center is about.
The plan to close this facility does not make any sense. Why would we close the one facility that is successfully providing the incarcerated with training and usable job skills?
People are sent to prison as punishment and for rehabilitation, not for punishment. Somehow the rehabilitation factor has been missing for many decades now and that is why so many are released, commit more crimes, and return to prison again.
“Serious changes that have long been needed will now get attention,” Morrison says. Our changes should be based on what is most beneficial to our society. I say we need reform in the entire criminal justice system, but why fix the one place that isn’t broken?
Sandra Gadsberry
Vancouver
Much money spent for little progress
The Columbia River Interstate 5 Bridge issue appears to be only to glorify Vancouver. Portland has eight bridges crossing the Willamette River. It appears these bridges were constructed for the purpose of allowing progressive movement in the metropolitan area without all traffic being funneled over two or three bridges.
In 1958, a second I-5 span was added to accommodate increased I-5 traffic as well as metropolitan traffic volume increases. In 1982, the Glenn Jackson Interstate 205 Bridge was added as a relief route to take traffic off the I-5 corridor. Today I-205 has heavy traffic. Removal of the current bridges will be very costly. After construction of a new glorified bridge, regardless of the number of lanes, it still does not solve the problem. Portland Mayor Sam Adams fears a new bridge will cause traffic backups at the Rose Quarter.
Money already spent would have been wiser utilized constructing new bridges in the Camas-Washougal area to Troutdale, Ore. and below the Vancouver railroad bridge to better serve the metropolitan area with the increased population.
Frank H. Funk
Vancouver
Slow down in Battle Ground
I recently moved right into Battle Ground and I was so excited to walk to work every day. However, in my two-block commute to work, I have almost been hit by cars at least four times in one recent week. Each time I was either in a crosswalk or crossing a driveway.
It has been daylight every time, so there’s no way the drivers of these cars had any legitimate excuse to not see me. One of them had even failed to stop at a stop sign while I was in the crosswalk.
I work at a coffeehouse and we employees pull a little red wagon across the street to a store to get our milk. The other employees and I have to dodge traffic every day, even though we cross in a crosswalk. Are drivers not aware that they are required by law to stop for people in crosswalks? Do they see that we are pulling a 100-pound wagon overflowing with milk jugs?
I really wish the drivers in Battle Ground would slow down and pay attention before our town loses its good reputation.
Stephanie Heikes
Battle Ground
Recession is Democrats’ fault
Regulation, interference, and meddling with free market capitalism by liberal Democrats caused this recession.
The mortgage crisis triggering the collapse of our financial markets was rooted in the 1977 Democrat-sponsored “Community Reinvestment Act,” a scheme to increase home ownership among people unable to make payments, and then forcing banks to either grant those really bad loans or face litigation.
Then they expected things to somehow magically work out. Now they’re blaming lending institutions for what government regulation caused.
You cannot tax and regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to prosper, nor tax and regulate our private sector (people and businesses) into near slavery and expect us to produce.
Government isn’t what produces America’s wealth — capitalism is. Government confiscates and squanders our wealth. To try to stimulate prosperity by government spending is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift it.
Robert Wassman
Vancouver
Donnelly’s column missed the mark
In her Feb. 11 column, “Reviving private sector imperative,” Ann Donnelly likes blaming Barack Obama’s regulatory agenda for the collapse of business in Southwest Washington. Evidence suggests she’s placed the blame where it cannot belong.
In presenting the idea that regulation spurred the exit of businesses, Donnelly conveniently ignores President George W. Bush’s routine promulgation of executive orders, which notoriously sought to negate entire acts of Congress concerning environmental and workplace safety regulation.
What did Bush-era deregulation and nonregulation produce? A breathtaking collapse of business and securities markets washing out more than a third of investment value, which has yet to be recovered; bankers’ withdrawal from lending to large and small businesses, fostering record bankruptcies and commercial foreclosures; and securities trading rife with conflicts of interest and fraud.
The consequence of President Bush’s agenda produced bankruptcies (personal and commercial) and a population that now lives in fear that it might be out of a house, out of a job, out of money, and out of luck. You can rearrange the order if you like, but those facts remain.
Donnelly’s unvetted GOP talking points shouldn’t ignore evidence that deregulation and tax cuts chiefly benefited the very wealthy and encouraged the greatest collapse of markets in my lifetime and perhaps in America’s history.
