LETTERS: Pumping money into schools futile

To the editor:

Clark County School Board President Carolyn Edwards and Associate Superintendent and lobbyist Joyce Haldeman broke the state law prohibiting the use of public dollars to lobby for a campaign, in this case to increase property taxes for school improvements. Ms. Edwards’ legal fees, to date, amount to approximately $30,000 (“Ethics panel OKs settlements,” Thursday Review-Journal). Are the taxpayers going to pick up the tab for the board president?

Pumping money into the school system has never produced higher quality education, but it does give the administrators a bigger salary. Check the statistics on private education versus public education, and you will find better-quality education for less money in the private sector.

In the 2012 election, the School Board was pushing for 21 cents per $100 of assessed valuation in new property taxes. For a home assessed at $300,000, this would result in a $223 increase in property taxes. County voters said no.

Back in the 1970s, homeowners in California were losing their homes due to skyrocketing property taxes created by the likes of Ms. Edwards and Ms. Haldeman. Proposition 13 put a stop to unchecked property tax increases.

Do your own research, and you will find that Nevada’s public education system is below the national average.

GERET N. KRITZER

LAS VEGAS

Website flaws

To the editor:

I have been disabled and out of work for more than a year with a degenerative nerve disease. I can’t get Medicaid because I can’t prove I’m disabled without proof from a doctor. I can’t get proof from a doctor without insurance, the perfect Catch-22. I’ve been fighting since January.

I thought maybe with Obamacare, I might get some help. I should have known better. After spending more than four hours fighting my way through the state website, I finally got to the last page, which would show me my health care options. There were six options, from buying insurance outright, to using various government subsidies, to Medicaid. To my astonishment, I qualified for none of these. I could not get insurance through the website in any way shape or form.

I called the provided phone number and informed the woman who answered that I had completed the application and gotten turned down for every possible option. She told me that wasn’t possible, took all of my info again and processed it again. She got the same result.

She seemed surprised and told me that I needed to appeal my case to Medicaid. I don’t have the money to purchase insurance on my own; how can it be that no matter what answers I provide, I wouldn’t be offered the chance to get something? It’s just another example of how poorly this program is working.

JAMES TAUBE

LAS VEGAS

Reid’s actions bely words

To the editor:

For all of his talk about bipartisanship, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went with the nuclear option of requiring only a 51-vote majority in the Senate to advance the president’s executive and judicial nominees, despite bipartisan opposition (“Senate makes historic change,” Friday Review-Journal). If you want judicial nominees to get bipartisan support, nominate someone palatable to both parties. That’s why such votes always required more than a simple majority to win support.

Because Sen. Reid and President Barack Obama can’t get what they want, they just trim a little fat off the rules until they get what they want. Sen. Reid forgets the country is pretty much split down the middle. I, for one, don’t want a federal judge who is a hard-line Republican or Democrat. I want someone in the middle. Someone who, regardless of party affiliation, could get the approval of 60 senators.

BRANDON TAYLOR

LAS VEGAS