Romney voucher plan just a sop to the rich
To the editor:
It's bad enough that the Republicans want to give tax cuts to the rich on the backs of the middle class, now they want us to pay for the rich kids who go to private schools. Mitt Romney's voucher system will not get one middle-class or poor kid into an expensive private school.
Even with the voucher, the cost will be prohibitive for anyone who is not in the private schools now.
The voucher system is a de facto benefit for the rich. They will still be sending their children to the private schools, but the taxpayer will supplement the cost. This, in turn, will take money out of the public school system, and the level of education will go down - if that is possible.
No little poor kid is going to benefit from the voucher system, so don't let Mr. Romney and the Republicans appeal to your sense of responsibility with this illusion.
Frank Sutherland
Las Vegas
Money grabber
To the editor:
I had to laugh when I read the first paragraph of Robert Gardner's Saturday's letter to the editor, headlined "Picking losers." It states that as CEO of Bain Capital, Mitt Romney tried to make struggling companies competitive. If it worked, the letter goes on, people got jobs, and if it didn't, they lost jobs.
Who is Mr. Gardner trying to kid? Mr. Romney's goal at Bain wasn't to turn companies around. His only goal was to make the most money he could for Bain by whatever means possible.
Bain Capital dealt in highly leveraged buyout deals. This borrowed money would burden the acquired company with so much more debt it would lead to firing workers, outsourcing their jobs overseas, selling assets and eliminating pension plans. Bain still collected millions in management fees, but the company would fail anyway.
Mr. Romney calls this "creative destruction." There's no way to spin that into a feel-good, happy-ending fairy tale.
Mr. Gardner also states that taxpayers weren't forced into investing in any of these businesses. This is not entirely true. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, bankrupted pensions are assigned to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal agency created to administer benefits to retirees. While the pensions are funded by insurance premiums, we all know who pays the salaries of government employees - taxpayers.
There is a big difference in having a great record of success and having a great record of making money. All Mr. Romney did was make a few people rich at the expense of middle-class American workers.
God help us all if he's allowed to run the United States of America.
Vicki Linkin
Las Vegas
Big spenders
To the editor:
Is the Obama administration just corrupt, or is it worse than that?
In his Sunday opinion piece, Marc A. Thiessen, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, outlined a number of private companies that received guaranteed government loans that have resulted in the loss of nearly $11.35 billion. Keep in mind that $4.5 billion of that was borrowed from countries such as China.
We now have nothing to show for those lost tax dollars except the interest we still owe on the money borrowed to flush it down proverbial toilet. What did the U.S. taxpayer get in return? We got to see the leaders of those failed companies bundle and donate $485,834 to the Obama re-election campaign.
It would have been 23 times cheaper if we had just asked the Obama campaign to take the $486 million from the U.S. Treasury.
Mr. Obama has recently been hammering Mitt Romney for a few lost private investments at Bain Capital. That's some major-league chutzpah from the biggest spender in the history of the world.
Skip Blough
North Las Vegas
Real issues
To the editor:
Have we totally lost sight of the purpose of the presidential election?
I plan to vote for the candidate who can save our economy, create jobs, enforce immigration law, force members of Congress to work, stop pointless wars, execute terrorists and reduce the national debt. If the election will be won by the candidate who raises the most money, then we can just determine the selling price of the office of president and eliminate the election.
I do not care if a wife works or not - I'm not voting for the wife. I do not care about what a candidate did in high school or his views on gay marriage, religion or abortion. These are personal or state issues and not presidential decisions. I do not care if a candidate is rich as long as his money did not come from our taxes.
I vote independent, and I do not care what party candidates represent, because they are all just rich career politicians who cannot stop soliciting money long enough to get to work. Can we ever get back to the basic issue of which candidate can and will focus on the real issues at hand?
Carolyn Boyle
Las Vegas
Plenty of cops
To the editor:
Clyde Dinkins' Friday letter to the editor leads us to believe that we have a shortage of cops. His suggestion is to increase the county's sales tax rate, now at 8.1 percent.
Recently, at 7:45 a.m., eight motorcycle officers were observed at a speed trap at Sahara Avenue and the Las Vegas Beltway. One was blocking the sidewalk with a radar gun and the others were on the onramp.
The number of officers in this one location alone would indicate there isn't a shortage of officers.
Geret Kritzer
Las Vegas
