We must make choices about Nevada’s future

To the editor:

Living in this state should be more than just about life, it should be about enjoying your life, being productive daily and having purpose to waking up. Living is about quality of life.

In Nevada, we are faced with the highest unemployment rate in a generation, a record number of foreclosures and a rising cost of living without a similar rise in pay.

Now is not the time to set fire to the remaining safety net that keeps our friends and neighbors from devastation.

We are faced with a proposed state budget that reduces bed capacity at mental health facilities all around the state, reduces funding for the drug courts, supports caseload growth per state worker and reduces energy assistance programs for those who are struggling to make ends meet. The list of these ugly cuts goes on for 449 pages in the next fiscal year's biennium.

These are vital programs to Nevada's citizens and families, because in these uncertain times, making a person's life more uncertain reduces his chance for contributing to our growth.

There is that old adage that you must spend money to make money, and if we expect our state to grow and diversify economically, we must make those choices to save our neighbors now so they can help in that growth in the future.

Timothy Taycher

Las Vegas

Scraping along

To the editor:

Regarding Tuesday's letter from Richard J. Mundy concerning the "arena tax":

Mr. Mundy states this tax "would add 90 cents to a $100 purchase ... and 18 cents to a $20 purchase. Why is anyone getting excited over these amounts?"

Mr. Mundy, do you have a business in the new, exclusive "tourist tax zone"? Well, I do. And like a lot of other small businesses in Las Vegas, I am scraping along by the skin on my teeth. A little tax here, a little tax there. After awhile, these "little taxes" add up. I can't just move my business out of the "tax zone" at the drop of a hat. I already get comments from customers about our 8.1 percent sales tax.

People of Las Vegas, for the love of Las Vegas, please stop signing these petitions to raise taxes. Whether they be paid by ourselves or tourists, you are killing the goose that lays golden eggs. That goose is Vegas, baby!

Mark D. Traeger

Las Vegas

At war

To the editor:

Congress should do what is long overdue: Declare war on al-Qaida.

The legal status of war would crystallize the "battle lines" and obviate the constitutional issues that constantly come up, like targeting American citizens overseas working for al-Qaida. (In World War II, Americans of German ancestry who went to Germany to fight for the Nazis were subject to the same treatment the Nazis were.) After all, as a rare exception to protecting the weak, those people whose aim is the destruction of the United States and its Constitution should not be entitled to its protections.

And domestic operatives of al-Qaida should be subject to the penalties appropriate for treason.

Randall Davis

Henderson

It's a secret

To the editor:

Regarding The Associated Press article about too many classified documents:

Just the WikiLeaks posts are approaching 1 million items. Think about that. One million. Where did all these documents come from?

In my more than 30 years in government, I found that secrecy breeds incompetence. Make a mistake? Classify it and you can make it, or one just like it, again and again.

Facetiously I suggest that only six people in government be allowed to classify documents. The number they could physically process in an eight-hour day might be about the right amount.

I learned early on not to put anything on paper that I couldn't stand to have appear on the front page of The Washington Post. Fewer documents created, combined with the knowledge that secrecy wouldn't protect the contents, would force the creators to be more circumspect about the content, and, consequently, more to the important points. Fewer documents, less gossip, more substance -- all desirable outcomes.

The Clinton administration directed the National Archives to embark upon a concerted effort to declassify stuff. Not only could their personnel not keep up with the creation stream, the Bush administration strangled the effort.

I once had a high-ranking general tell me that one of the biggest mistakes the military ever made was not to classify the laser. Think of all the consumer electronics that wouldn't be on the market if the laser had been made secret. God help us with that type of thinking.

Jim Daniel

Las Vegas

Military raises

To the editor:

I hope that the Review-Journal will make its readers aware that our corrupt and incompetent members of Congress are going to give our beloved military only a 1.4 percent raise, the least since 1962. Meanwhile, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Shelley Berkley and the Democrats want to spend about $70 billion to grant amnesty to illegals.

This is utterly unconscionable.

Gerald Duncan

Las Vegas