ObamaCare threatens citizens’ safety

To the editor:

I was formerly an air traffic control instructor, and my students learned by controlling live traffic. My job was to ensure the safety of the flying public. I could only let the student go as far as safety permitted, even though on occasion, the student might have thought the operation would have worked.

I feel the same thing is true of the Affordable Care Act. The backers of President Barack Obama’s plan are playing with real people’s lives. Study after study has shown it’s a train wreck waiting to happen. Can we allow government to take a chance with our lives?

JACK OLIVER

LAS VEGAS

Wealth creation

To the editor:

In response to Dennis Kmit’s letter (“Wealth creation,” Tuesday Review-Journal), his claims defy logic. How can someone who has little or no money generate wealth that makes other people rich?

The way wealth is created is when someone has an idea and starts a business, by using one’s own money or borrowing it. That person is then the owner/operator of the business and the first employee. As the business grows, the owner can hire people to help with an increasing workload. The new employees are paid from the money generated by the business.

As unemployment goes down, there is more competition for employees, causing wages to increase. Competition also keeps the price of goods down — when prices are too high, more people can produce a product and the price goes down; when the price is too low, companies go out of business. Ultimately, a happy medium of price and production is created.

When all expenses are paid and the business owner takes his pay, anything left is usually saved or reinvested into the business.

Taxes and regulations determine how many people a business can hire. Taxes and regulations increase costs. This money must be paid by someone, either by the consumer, or by the business having to lay off employees. Businesses must make money in order to survive.

To summarize, the person with the idea and strong desire to follow through with it, putting his own resources at risk, is what generates wealth. There’s nothing wrong with people trying to keep as much of their income as possible by sheltering their money. Everyone does. If you want it to stop, we should go to a flat tax with no deductions, and it’ll stop.

And as far as the national debt under George W. Bush, the average annual budget shortfall was $192 billion. Under Barack Obama, it’s been over $1 trillion every year he has been in office, and during his first two years, Democrats also had control of the Senate and the House. I’d say the Democrats are to blame for a large portion of this problem.

ALAN GALINS

LAS VEGAS

Rich provide jobs

To the editor:

Dennis Kmit doesn’t believe that jobs are created by the wealthy (“Wealth creation,” Tuesday letters). Then he shifts into a discussion of the creation of wealth. Those are two entirely different subjects.

However much wealth the workers at Ford managed to accumulate, they simply would not have been able to do that if some rich people hadn’t first invested their money to build the factory, make and buy the machinery, and buy the inventory, tools and equipment necessary to make the cars in the first place. Without wealthy people making those investments, there never would have been a Ford Motor Company and, as such, no jobs would have been created.

No jobs means no wealth. The rich are necessary. When is the last time a poor person offered you a job?

And as far as manufacturing jobs being moved overseas, the fallacy is in concentrating on only that one fact. While making items overseas reduces American manufacturing jobs, it increases the number of jobs for dock workers, truckers, importers and distributors. And for consumers, instead of spending, for example, $100 for an American-made item, you are buying it for $50. By decreasing the amount of money you have to spend on the item, that increases your wealth.

RICHARD PULSIFER

HENDERSON

Oklahoma shooting

To the editor:

Christopher Lane, a college baseball player in Oklahoma, was murdered in cold blood. He was shot in the back, senselessly killed by two black teenagers and a white teen driver. They said they were bored and looking for excitement.

Those with an agenda (bleeding-heart liberals) are outraged and blaming it on a lack of gun control laws. Their mantra is that this is a case of gun violence. Well, bleeding hearts, I have another view: It’s one of the rare cases of black-on-white instead of black-on-black violence. I say that the basic root cause is the media idolizing a culture that urges violence, mayhem and murder.

Will the president now come to the Rose Garden and say that if he had a son, he’d look like one of these despicable killers?

AMY SIMPSON

LAS VEGAS