Small segment of population carrying burden
I am a local high school teacher, and I agree with Sara Gregory's recent letter to the editor. Why is it that the state workers and the teachers have to take a cut in pay to make up for the budget shortfall?
We are a very small segment of our population making it a heavy burden to have to carry. We alone did not create the problems, so I think that the solutions should come from everyone who lives here in Nevada, not just state workers and teachers. We work hard just like anyone else for our pay.
LISA KRAMER
Dayton
Gibbons should veto budget
The Independent American Party urges the governor to veto the budget. This budget will require tax increases. Increasing taxes during a recession only makes the recession worse. It hurts business and consumers. Some businesses will close or lay off workers; some businesses will raise prices that will hurt consumers.
The budget committees meet in secret. Assembly Majority Leader John Oceguera claims the budget meetings are not secret. He is right, the proceedings are secret! Whatever happened to the open meeting law? The Legislature should work with the governor, not against him.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute (www.npri.org) has a budget without a tax increase that is different from the governor's and has some good ideas, but I do not think that the Legislature has looked at it.
If the RINOs (Republicans in name only) do not defect, maybe we can get a budget without a tax increase.
JOHN WAGNER
VICE CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT AMERICAN PARTY
Carson City
Tax-raising legislators true
villains in budget dilemma
I must take issue with Illustrator Killbuck's May 13 editorial cartoon depicting Gov. Jim Gibbons as the state budget villain.
The state of Nevada lacks funds; common sense dictates that we reduce spending. Gov. Gibbons has taken fiscal responsibility to heart and proposed unpopular budget cuts. His reward has been slanderous name-calling by the university chancellor and daily headlines proclaiming the state Legislature's inability to stomach a single budget cut.
The true villain in the budget dilemma will be the legislators when they run out of time and fall back on their only idea: Increasing taxes on us, the hardworking taxpayers.
The opinion page of the Appeal has shrunk to half its size, five days a week. I'd prefer to see the page as packed with as much truth and substance as possible.
LINDA ANDERSON
Carson City
Santa Obama to blame
for annoying phone calls
Well, this is just great.
I'm on the national "do not call" list, and yet I still get calls from companies wanting to refinance my credit cards. It's extremely annoying as I have excellent credit and minimal interest rates.
Now, with Santa Obama's stiff-all-of-us plan, I'm getting phone calls from companies that want to show me how to get a piece of this pie. It's extremely infuriating why I can be solicited on the phone for something I'm so vehemently against. Like a Catholic priest getting phone calls from a bordello asking if he's lonesome and Obama has a special rate just for him.
We are getting so shafted.
CYNTHIA KENNEDY
Virginia City