Politicians correct to target smoking
I applaud the Washington state House of Representatives. Its budget included an increase in the tax on both cigarettes and other tobacco products, which will raise more than $90 million to help fill our state’s budget deficit, reduce tobacco use, and protect other health care priorities. Higher tobacco prices will keep kids from buying the products and motivate adults to quit. Legislators underscored the need not just to raise the tax, but also to help people quit.
The tobacco industry spends millions of dollars each year to push their products. Nationally, there has been a spike in new, smokeless tobacco products, which deceptively look like mints and candies. I watched my father die from smoking. We can’t sit back and let the tobacco industry deceive our children. We can combat this through education and providing the resources to quit. Through our state’s successful tobacco prevention programs, smoking rates have declined 30 percent since 1999. We’ve come too far to give up ground to tobacco companies and put more kids at risk to the dangers of their products.
Please join me in asking the Senate to work with the House to avoid cuts to life-saving prevention programs. Leave a message for your state legislators at 1-800-562-6000.
Jennifer Kampsula
Vancouver
Solicit new business to our state
I have written to a variety of city, county and state elected officials encouraging them to do as the governors of Idaho and Montana are doing in appealing to Oregon business leaders who are tired of being cast as the enemy and taxed accordingly and inviting them to bring their jobs and revenue to Washington state. The response has been abysmal.
Apparently the same set of 1970s college radicals as are now running Oregon state are running Washington state, too. Instead of attempting to draw the injured parties to relocate here with their businesses and jobs, we are set on raising taxes in Washington, too. This, of course, makes things even easier for the governors of Idaho and Montana, where they realize that businessmen and women make jobs, and that making jobs is the best way to reduce unemployment.
Doesn’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy to know that our economic policies in Washington state will be very popular in some college and university economics departments as businesses flow East to more business-friendly states?
Glenn Durden
Vancouver
Secure better bus service
Why are the politicians so adamant about securing light rail in Vancouver? Let’s face it, Vancouver is not exactly a booming and thriving metropolis. Light rail will just add congestion to the already narrow streets.
What is wrong with the existing bus service? If the politicians think light rail will attract more customers, they are living in a dream world. The bus service is already cutting routes because of fading revenues. Putting light rail into Vancouver is definitely an unnecessary expense and unwarranted. Let’s improve the bus service instead.
Kenneth Juergen von Husen,
Vancouver
Let’s clean house
Like most Clark County homeowners, we recently received our property tax bill for 2010. Despite a nearly 10 percent year-over-year drop in the assessed value of our home, our property taxes actually went up. This demonstrates once again (as though we need more proof) that even local government is completely out of touch with its citizenry.
In this worst recession in 80 years, our local agencies and school districts apparently can’t or won’t figure out how to live within the same constraints as the rest of us. I’m outraged and disgusted. It’s no wonder there’s a nationwide movement to clean house, come the next election.
Tom Sharples
Vancouver
Lead the way to energy reform
I have been listening to the back-and-forth arguments over the validity of global warming for months now. Though I believe it be a reality, I respect the rights of others to have a contrasting opinion on the subject.
Regardless what you think the truth is, there is one fact that is irrefutable. We will run out of oil. Our entire economy runs on billions of gallons of oil. With China and India coming on board with massive oil demand, the prices will go up and up due to supply and demand. This will place an onerous burden on families and businesses, which will intensify over time.
It is our responsibility as a nation to lead the way into the future. Like with computer technology and space flight, we need to rise to the challenge as a we have done in the past and create a new energy system that will ensure our survival.
That would make me proud to be an American.
Rex Goble
Vancouver
Relax restrictive production rules
I see a lot of raising new taxes, increasing school tuition charges, and budget cuts all around the board. I wonder, is anything besides cutting and taxing being done to help our state pull out of this downturn?
I propose we attempt to get new business and jobs rolling, and one way we can do that is by changing the restrictions on starting a food production business. How many people, myself included, have considered starting something like a little health food bakery or other food business, selling their wares on a trial basis at a farmers market to begin, only to be discouraged by the start-up costs?
Why can we not, like our Oregon neighbors, first produce on a small scale out of our own homes, instead of taking a huge monetary risk in trying to lease or build what is considered a “proper” facility?
Just imagine the potential influx of business if people were just given a little break and allowed to attempt their ideas without all the risk and discouragement that currently dominates the small-food production landscape.
Who knows, we just might get some healthier food options on our tables as well.
Christopher Brothers
Vancouver
Eliminate taxpayer-provided ‘choice’
Slavery was legal in the past, but was it moral? I would not want to pay for someone to have a slave; why should I be forced to pay for someone to have an abortion, which I believe to be immoral? If abortion is a “choice,” why are we taxpayers forced to pay for any part of it in health care reform?
Pro-life people save taxpayers millions of dollars every year by caring for pregnant women and their babies. If people want to help someone obtain an abortion, they should pay for it as a form of charity.
