Congress must pass some kind of health care bill

To the editor:

How many of us are a lost paycheck away from disaster? I could survive maybe two years if I lost my job, but my neighbors might not be so lucky.

I could last maybe six months if I didn't have health insurance and I had an auto accident, like I did in 2003.

If you are middle-class, you have to be crazy not to support passage of a health care bill. You can expect that if you are a small business owner that your premiums will continue to go up. Like Wall Street, health insurance is all about profit. Middle-class America shrunk from this last go-around of mismanagement. To not think about the future and where we are going is to not think of our children.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't mind paying an extra $2,000 a year in taxes if I knew that families could get health care should the breadwinner lose his job.

Honestly, I feel comfortable about my future, but I do not feel comfortable about the health care system we are leaving to our children. Ask yourself, "How close am I to disaster?" Then tell me you don't want a health care bill passed.

Allan Frank

LAS VEGAS

No income tax

To the editor:

In response to Joel Tyning's call for a 5 percent personal income tax (Saturday letters), one has to ask, "What rock has Mr. Tyning been living under?"

To even utter the question "Why should 14,000 state employees support more than 2 million Nevada residents?" is a colossal demonstration of ignorance.

State employees are 100 percent supported by the 2 million Nevadans in this state, not the other way around. Sales, property, gasoline, motor vehicle, federal income and other taxes and fees imposed on the 2 million Nevadans by our government pay every penny of the salaries of those 14,000 government workers.

Since 2007, literally hundreds of thousands of working Nevadans have lost their jobs, savings and even their homes while state and local government employees have been collecting their taxpayer-financed and union-demanded paychecks.

At the November 2009 strategic planning session of the Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas chapter, no less an authority than Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis demonstrated that while more than 26 percent of unemployed Nevadans were from the construction industry, only 1 percent had come from state or local government.

It is widely known that Nevada state and local government employees are some of the highest paid in the nation, and their unfunded retirement benefits threaten to bankrupt this state right now. While all job losses are horrible, the state and local government employees should not be all but immune.

One of the few things potentially bringing more diverse businesses to this state (thereby creating more jobs for Nevadans) is the fact that Nevada has no personal income tax.

In fact, that is a right guaranteed to every Nevadan by the state constitution.

But regardless of the merits of such a tax, the entitlement agenda of the state and local public employees -- demonstrated so succinctly by Mr. Tyning's rhetorical ignorance -- cannot be supported further. Mr. Tyning owes all Nevadans an apology.

Beau Mead

LAS VEGAS

Go to California

To the editor:

In his Saturday letter to the editor, Joel Tyning wrote with a "solution to the state's budget problem." His answer was "impose a flat 5 percent state income tax."

Well, before Mr. Tyning tries to "impose" such a solution on the rest of us, perhaps he should be reminded that no one is stopping him from setting an example. All he has to do is simply start mailing a check for 5 percent of his gross annual income to Carson City directly.

But if compulsory taxation is more to Mr. Tyning's preference, may I suggest a place where taxation flourishes and a vast array of "public services" are offered? For a rate of about 20 percent, commonly paid through something known as a "value-added tax," one can get lots of promised services, including free health care, complete with the many flavors of multiculturalism and languages. The place is called Europe.

Of course, if that's too far for family and friends to visit, there is another option much closer by. Multiculturalism and many other languages also abound there, with all the free services one can apply for -- all at a tax rate of only about 10 percent. That place is called California.

John Thompson

HENDERSON

Nuclear threat

To the editor:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is thumping his chest for being instrumental in cutting funds for a spent nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, a wasteland 100 miles from Las Vegas. However, he does not oppose storing nuclear weapons, which are far more dangerous, at the Nellis Air Force Base, located in our back yard.

It is obvious that politics drives this man, not common sense and doing what is best for Nevada.

Wayne Violette

LAS VEGAS