A six-figure pension at 43? What a country

To the editor:

Regarding Glenn Cook's April 22 column, "Meet John Oceguera, world-class hypocrite":

Did you get the feeling your personal financial world was collapsing after reading about Mr. Oceguera's retirement coup? An alleged public servant collecting a six-figure pension at age 43? How is this possible?

The Nevada Constitution's separation of powers doctrine was alive and well until 40 years ago. In 1971, however, the attorney general issued an opinion allowing a schoolteacher to serve in the Legislature while keeping his executive branch teaching position. This opinion did not have the force of law, but it was welcome news for power-hungry executive branch employees.

By 2004, that one employee had expanded to 13. By then, all the constitutional checks and balances that were in place were destroyed.

Did these 13 public employees use their positions to unjustly enrich other public employees outside of the Legislature? You be the judge.

Mr. Oceguera is running for Congress. How about a "Yes" vote for him so he can start on his second pension and be eligible to collect that after five years? By then he will be only 48.

What a great country!

EDWARD R. DUFFY

LAS VEGAS

Time to act

To the editor:

I see from your Tuesday front page that Social Security and Medicare are going broke even faster than our trusted elected officials thought.

The problem is the economy. Industry and the jobs that it created are what built this nation into the greatest ever. Unfortunately, the majority of the population has stood idly by as our industries have left and taken our jobs with them. Now we are going to pay the price for shopping at Wal-Mart and buying Toyotas.

Our government does not seem to give a rat's rear end about the sorry state of affairs. Instead of taking the radical steps that would turn things around, officials point fingers and play the blame game.

There is no simple solution, but there are ideas out there that show a lot more promise than extending unemployment and taxing the rich.

Change the tax system, and do it soon. We should be rewarding those who strive to better themselves and their employees. We should encourage corporations to not only stay here but to expand. We should be leveling the playing field for our corporations so that they can compete in the world marketplace.

But, no, that would diminish the power of our elected officials to make tax deals for their cronies.

Time is running out on our way of life - just ask the millions of our fellow citizens who cannot find a job. Ask any of the folks who are stuck on welfare without any way out.

We need jobs to turn this around, and the place where we are going to find them is in American factories. We need our government to get out of the way so that our products will be competitive.

Don't sit on your hands any longer. Apathy is what got us here. Our Founding Fathers never intended for us to roll over and let this great experiment called representative democracy be sown under because of the greed of the career politicians.

We don't need a knight in shining armor. We need a new group of leaders who will do the work of the people instead of the work of their political party.

Nicholas P. Gartner

Henderson