Time for political leaders to do their jobs
To the editor:
Are we really as selfish and spoiled as we are acting?
Propose small cuts from programs, salaries and benefits and we take to the streets. We predict dire consequences and actually suggest that some of our employees will be forced onto welfare. If we can't even defund a program that teaches mothers how to get their children to sleep, we really are in trouble.
We buy bottled water by the case, spend a fortune on cell phones and cable, yet lament there is nowhere we can cut.
We faced a crisis during World War II and had gasoline and commodities rationing. We came together after 9/11 and were united. Now we have another crisis, and all of a sudden it's every man for himself.
We continued to kick this can down the road, and now we are out of road. I urge our political leaders to do the difficult job they were elected to do. Don't just cut, cut to the bone. Do your job, don't just work to save it.
I would like to hear our state lawmakers say, "We don't care if you re-elect us, we are going to make tough changes that require everyone to sacrifice for the sake of the future of our country." That must include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all other entitlements.
I want to be a proud American again, and I will sacrifice to put our house in order. It's the least I can do.
SHIRLEE YUNKER
LAS VEGAS
Fan strike
To the editor:
Men making millions of dollars are at an impasse with men making billions. Why? Greed!
Will the NFL owners lock out the players, putting the 2011 pro football season at risk?
Sports today is all about money. It isn't sport anymore.
This dispute could be settled in 24 hours by the fans, if the fans would go on strike and refuse to attend any games in 2011. The millions and billions are paid by the fans.
WALTER E. GUNTHER
LAS VEGAS
No hope
To the editor:
Watching the TV coverage of the so-called "dedicated" public servants in Wisconsin, I began thinking: Have I missed something?
Do the public servants still work for the taxpayers? Or has "hope and change" reversed the roles?
The taxpayers now work for the public servants.
CURTIS F. CLARK
BOULDER CITY
Union blues
To the editor:
Does any logical, thinking person truly believe that in 2011, without unions, we would slip back into the labor practices of the early to mid-1900s? We have the EEOC, OSHA and at least dozens if not hundreds of other government agencies monitoring labor practices. It would take a true ignoramus to believe that today's companies or governments would try to do away with the 40-hour work week, maternity leave, family leave, overtime, etc. ...
I hold no ill will toward private unions. The companies their members work for have to look out for their workers and themselves. It is their business. Turn a profit, or everybody loses. But government employee unions, they are a different bird altogether.
Government union contracts make it next to impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire bad ones. They bargain for and usually get, at taxpayer expense, outrageous and unsustainable benefit packages unheard of in today's private sector. All of this from politicians who they back during election time. This is corruption in its truest form.
These politicians aren't paying these folks with their own money. They are paying them with taxpayer money. Money that might have gone to a down-on-his-luck citizen in the form of a "hand up" -- instead of a bloated, extravagant benefits package.
"It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government." So said George Meany, former president of the AFL-CIO, in 1955. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the patron saint of the American labor movement, in a 1937 letter written to the president of the Nation Federation of Federal Employees, stated, "the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." He also called it "unthinkable" and "intolerable."
President Roosevelt was a man of unquestionable integrity and high moral character. He was also absolutely right.
Mark D. Traeger
Las Vegas
Still exists
To the editor:
Nevada is the only state that allows its counties to tax and regulate the oldest profession in the world. While it is illegal in Clark and Washoe counties, ask the many entrepreneurs who hand out cards on the Strip if it exists.
Ask the billboard salespeople who drive the Strip, advertising girls, if it exists. Ask the posh hotels that sell "pleasure kits" in their rooms if it exists. Ask the cabbies and limo drivers if it exists. Ask Metro if it exists.
The key is to regulate prostitution for the good of the clients and the girls. Following the law of supply and demand, if there were no customers, there would be no prostitution.
While every state has prostitution, Nevada is the only U.S. state that admits it and taxes and regulates it. This approach is honest and realistic.
You would think we, as a nation, had learned some lessons from the history of Prohibition. I guess not.
TOM McCARTHY
LAS VEGAS
