LETTERS: Furloughed workers get paid vacation

To the editor:

Am I missing something here? Government workers at national parks and monuments were put on furlough by the Obama administration, and subsequently the facilities were closed (“Shut out from national parks, foreigners crowd state facilities,” Oct. 13 Review-Journal). Now the public is told that Congress has approved paying workers, regardless of whether or not they were on furlough.

If the workers are going to be paid, they should have been working during the shutdown. Why do they get a paid vacation at public expense? This highlights one of two scenarios: either we don’t need all these extra people in the first place, or President Barack Obama staged a spectacle to make the opposition party look bad and make the rest of us think we can’t live without the Democratic nanny state.

The only chaos in America today is a do-nothing president who knows how to con the public but doesn’t have the slightest inclination on how to lead. The sooner he leaves office and takes his terrible three with him — Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Attorney General Eric Holder — the sooner we regain some semblance of this nation’s past glory and dignity.

RON MOERS

HENDERSON

Sun shouldn’t set

To the editor:

The demise of the Las Vegas Sun is not in the best interests of the people of Las Vegas. Seldom do I agree with an editorial opinion expressed by the Sun. But there are three important reasons I look forward to the Sun almost as much as the Review-Journal.

First, like a stopped clock that’s right twice a day, even a liberal doctrinaire such as Maureen Dowd occasionally expresses a valid or thought-provoking idea. You have to sift through a lot of fly droppings to find the pepper, but when you do, it’s worth the effort.

Second, the Sun is not just editorial. There’s “Dilbert,” one of the four best comics ever, along with “Frank and Ernest,” “The Far Side” and “Pogo.” And there’s The New York Times crossword that I do every day, even though it’s several weeks old because of syndication.

Third, there’s an abundance of good writing about nonpolitical topics that are well worth reading, stuff about the region, the state and the surrounding area you won’t find elsewhere.

Furthermore, a loss of jobs is never welcome, particularly during hard times. Ideology isn’t even close to being a sufficient reason for promoting a tragedy that puts people out of work.

Finally, if you find satisfaction in the loss of the Sun, you’ll have no legitimate ground to stand on when the liberals come after Fox News (again) or when Al Gore says there should be “political consequences” for not agreeing with his often muddled thinking. Don’t support the liberal thought-police mentality. I urge the Review-Journal to do all it can to preserve the Sun.

MIKE RUSCH

LAS VEGAS

Shutdown and health care

To the editor:

In all the worry over canceled vacations to national parks and furloughed federal workers, people seem to have forgotten the issue at the heart of the 2013 government shutdown. Babies, children and adults in this country are dying every day because they do not have health insurance.

According to a 2012 study by Reuters, more than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the U.S. annually because they lack health insurance. A 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics states that 30,000 infants die in the U.S. each year. Many of these deaths are due to the poor health of mothers and lack of prenatal care due to lack of health insurance. This madness must stop now.

KAY ELVERUM

CARSON CITY