Will of the voters was ignored
Barbara Jackson is absolutely correct in her March 4 letter, “Why vote if result is reversed?” when she wrote that it is pointless to vote. As shown with Initiative 960, if the Legislature does not like the outcome, it will overturn the will of the people and the governor will agree in order to levy any taxes they want without our consent. The Legislature has said that this suspension of I-960 will last for just two years. Sure it will. In two years, the Democratic Legislature and governor will be able to conjure another “emergency” to keep this one going as well as add taxes on to this one.
Jackson said she will not vote in the next election. We all must vote, to vote out legislators who overturned I-960. That vote must be decisive enough to disallow any recounts until the losing side gets the numbers they need, as was done in 2004. The governor and the legislators are forgetting, quite conveniently, that they are the public servants. We put them into that office; we can remove them from that office.
Bill Fisher
Vancouver
Time to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’
Recent letters by two former Marines commenting on gays serving in the military show the need for Americans to demand a repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell.” I’m a retired Marine who served a combat tour as an 18-year-old rifleman in Vietnam. Our platoon had 18 men; we should have had more than 40. Today, our Marines in combat are still short of the numbers needed.
The Marine Corps is looking for a few good men and women who have the desire, commitment to honor, devotion to duty, and the love of the Marine brothers and sisters they serve with. In combat, there are no special bullets or bombs that seek out an individual’s sexual preference; a dead service member is a dead person no matter their sexual orientation. Our troops need help. Americans are not storming the recruiting offices to enlist, and gays have been serving since the days of Alexander the Great.
The are many individuals who use God and the military to exalt their opinions, when in reality, they are just trying to praise themselves.
I personally know a gay Marine who fought in Vietnam and retired in 1990; he remained an outstanding Marine until the day he retired.
Metre L. Ogdee
Vancouver
Funding for homeless is critical
In the last week of the legislative session, lawmakers face difficult decisions. Everyone should have the opportunity to live in a safe, decent, affordable home. As executive director of Council for the Homeless, I see how the recession and soaring unemployment levels have made that a difficult proposition here in Clark County.
That’s why it’s so important for the Senate to match the House’s commitment to providing a home for everyone by approving $100 million for the Housing Trust Fund. The Fund builds affordable homes for people who need them, like the Vancouver Housing Authority’s Mill Creek apartments in Battle Ground. Mill Creek provides affordable homes for people who work hard yet earn less than 50 percent of the median income. The Fund allows these neighbors to live, work, and be productive in our community.
The Housing Trust Fund doesn’t just build new, affordable homes when people need them most; it also creates much-needed jobs. The construction sector has been battered by the recession, and the economy of Clark County would benefit greatly from this injection of new funding into the construction industry.
The Housing Trust Fund is a win-win for our state and community. Let’s hope the Senate funds it quickly.
Craig Lyons
Vancouver
Closing prisons is a bad idea
I am from the Clark County area. I am currently an inmate housed in the Department of Corrections in Airway Heights. I am appalled with the department’s decision to close Larch Corrections Center.
The Department of Corrections officials have been dealing with overcrowding in their prisons to where they sent many inmates to out-of-state prisons. DOC recently opened a prison expansion in Connell and then started bringing back inmates from out-of-state to fill open bed space. It makes no sense to build more prisons, then turn around and close existing prisons, which clearly creates overcrowding issues so that they will eventually have to send inmates out-of-state again.
Washington should restructure its sentencing guidelines on certain crimes so some inmates would get a lesser sentence, which would ease some overcrowding issues. But of course, many politicians won’t hear of it, so the Department of Corrections has to close prisons just after opening a new expansion because of overcrowding. Go figure.
Rodney Moreland
AIRWAY HEIGHTS
Cattle feed makes Americans ill
I watched our president and elected officials at work on a new health plan. The big problem is cost. If there weren’t so many sick people, that would bring down the price of health care. We see so many obese people around.
In one of George Will’s opinion columns, he attributes our epidemic of diabetes to a $100 billion-a-year consequence of a corn-based diet. Many millions of cattle and chickens are fattened on corn. Corn becomes an ocean of sweetening for our food. Corn, together with pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, is profitable to fatten cattle on feedlots rather than grass, cutting up to 75 percent the time from birth to slaughter. God designed cattle with two big stomachs. When I was a youngster and helped with the care of our cattle, I observed they like to graze until they’re full, then they find a quiet place and lie down, regurgitate and chew their cud. I believe many of our people are sick and obese because of the way we do agriculture. I believe that mad cow disease was caused by feeding cattle stuff that they were not designed to digest.
Alta Lunsford
Vancouver
It’s unfair to overtax smokers
Smokers, a very small fraction of the state’s taxpayers, smoke for any number of reasons, and I don’t see that what we do in our personal lives is really any of the state’s business anyway. Washington has always gone overboard on “sin taxes” and it’s making me sorry that I moved back to what I considered my home state after retirement. The state should either tax everyone or no one … that would be fair.
Make more big cutbacks in state salaries and benefits rather than tax all the rest of us to death when times are so bad, and most of us are really scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is. We, as individuals, have had to tighten our belts, so why shouldn’t state government and employees have to also?
Valerie Wheeler
Vancouver
