Letters to the editor March 10

State employees have been helping for years

The March 2 Nevada Appeal's "Our Opinion" ends with the very offensive sentence: "However, we do think it would improve things if public workers spent less time demonstrating and more time coming up with ways to help."

The demonstration was on a Saturday and not on any employer's time.

Nevada state employees have been helping for several years because their wages have been unilaterally reduced. Lower wages were barely acceptable in return for continued reasonable health care and a promise for a reasonable retirement.

Gov. Brian Sandoval's proposed budget lowers wages, removes incentive and longevity pay, reduces any practical health care benefit, destroys health care support for Medicare retirees and then threatens to remove any promise for a reasonable retirement for new employees. The governor's proposals would cause anyone in any employment situation to be in the garage making signs for a demonstration.

If Nevada had true unions with collective bargaining, we would have a mechanism for employees to help. Negotiations are two-way and not unilateral as is now the case. Collective bargaining would certainly be a more efficient negotiation mechanism than the current non-system wherein negotiation occurs in the newspaper, has lobbyists roaming the hallways and concludes in closed committee meetings.

Michael L. Greedy

Carson City

President's policies are causing rising gas prices

I don't understand why the media, both TV and newspapers, are reporting the rising prices of gasoline as news? It became obvious to me and everyone else that paid attention during Obama's run for the presidency that he had extreme views on oil production. In fact, he thinks that the U.S. should be punished for our past consumption of energy.

On June 12, 2008, during an interview with CNBC, he stated that there was nothing wrong with $4 per gallon gasoline, it just rose too fast. I believe he also said that it was OK for gasoline to rise to $10 per gallon. When he was elected president, it became inevitable that we would have uncontrollable inflation of gasoline because of his administration's energy policies. This was further verified when he restricted offshore drilling.

Do you recall that the last time gas was $4 per gallon that President Bush opened up more areas to drilling and the speculation quickly disappeared?

It is interesting to note that China is drilling in the Gulf of Mexico through a deal with Cuba, but our efforts are severely restricted. If you don't like the price of gasoline, or 14 percent unemployment - modern economies run on energy supplies - elect a different president in 2012.

Don Gurney

Carson City