Letters to the Editor April 29

Return to Ronald Reagan era not the answer

To the unidentified April 15 protester who was holding a sign "Reagan would fix it":

I have a tax return from 1986 showing taxable income of $34,097 and tax owed of $5,675. Tax on that amount in 2009 was only $4,276.

What exactly would Reagan fix?

Marilyn Madrigal

Carson City

Echoes of education debate in health reform

The emotional response surrounding the passage and signing of a health care reform bill continues to be grossly out of proportion to any threat. I read about the fear of the end of America and the end of freedom.

We can learn something about health care by the debate and problems we had as a nation in the area of public education. To establish a context, we move the conversation back about 150-200 years. A couple of states had some sort of public education early on, but for the most part, it was limited to those who could afford it. Some of the founding fathers thought that education should be available to all regardless of ability to pay and should be government controlled partly to avoid the influence of religion. It took about 150 years for that concept to emerge, and wasn't until the mid-20th century that public education was accepted by nearly all as an essential feature of a modern society.

We now understand that it is in the best interests of all that everyone be given an opportunity to learn, so we pay our taxes - not without complaining - but nobody is in the streets screaming for an end to public education. We take great pride in this country that opportunity to rise to the top is available to anyone, not just the ruling class.

America is not so fragile that it can't survive an improved health care system.

Daniel Schlenger

Carson City

What makes us uniquely American?

Definition of an American:

Believes in the possible.

Understands that a Constitution is made for people of fundamentally differing opinions and that those fundamentally differing opinions are largely worked out in the white hot cauldron of politics while being tempered by tolerance, civility and compromise.

Understands that civic-mindedness is not innate but depends, not only on education, but on also seeing responsible practicing examples in our political institutions, struggling and succeeding in bringing disparate means to common ends.

Understands that without civic-mindedness through education and responsible examples, we will leave succeeding generations adrift without the skills and habits of mind necessary to maintain our representative democracy.

Knows that these shared values are not limited by race, geography, class, heredity, etc.

This is not an exhaustive list of the possible shared values in our pluralistic society, but ones which I hope appeal to our better natures in a time of antagonistic partisan politics that threaten to make democracy impossible.

Dan Porath

Minden

Masto right to push back against lawsuit

Health reform is the right way to go in Nevada as well as nationally. Unless one has or is suffering through a chronic health challenge like cancer, then how can one fully understand the need for health care reform? Who wants to go through bankruptcy because of unpaid outrageously high medical bills? I believe all of us are born with pre-existing health conditions, and health care reform would improve the quality of living for many.

Health care reform means 68,321 people in Nevada with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied, and 9,300 families will be saved from bankruptcy. There will be tax cuts for 24,000 small businesses and 518,000 uninsured will be medically insured. And in the first few years, the federal government plans to pick up the tab for Medicaid.

Car insurance in Nevada is mandatory, and so should medical insurance be mandatory. All of us only get one body in one lifetime, then why not insure it and learn the proper ways of taking care of our health? I back our Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto for not participating in this counter-productive lawsuit Gov. Gibbons has going. Let's move on.

Ann Burke

Carson City