Posted: Friday, February 8, 2008 12:00 am
On the city's extra money, Measure 49, Presidential candidate finances, national finances, Israel and global warming
City is shortchanging Corvallis taxpayers
Some say the government's spending philosophy is: if it ain't broke, fix it until it is.
The Corvallis city government illustrates how this works.
The city recently discovered that it has more money available than expected. The city's response to its own good fortune has been to demand that all of its departments submit new and higher spending proposals.
In view of the country's looming recession, the city's action seems certain to exacerbate future revenue shortfalls.
The budget may not be broken now, so don't fix it in a way that is certain to break it later.
As a taxpayer who contributed to the city's recently found excess, I have a different proposal.
Return the excess to the citizens. Cancel the transportation maintenance fee/tax. The city touted that tax as necessary to make up for revenue shortfalls. The shortfall isn't there. So, we don't need the tax. If things get bad later, you can reconsider it then.
As a child, I was taught that when a grocery store cashier mistakenly gives you too much money in change, the courteous and honest thing to do is to return the excess to the cashier.
The Corvallis city government doesn't seem to relate that way to its citizens. Its practice when it gets more than it needs is: take the money and run.
Woody Allen and the old Steve Miller Band would be amused, but that's not a good lesson for our kids.
David Grappo
Corvallis
Measure 49 story not as simple as it seems
Anyone whose friend or relative's medical bills exhausted the family savings can empathize with the plight of Charles and Lillian Fischer, but their story ("Stopped by M49," Feb. 3) is not as simple as the headline implies.
It began long before Lillian's medical problems, when the farms that surrounded their farm were subdivided for housing.
When his neighbors were farmers, they accepted Fischer's farming activities, because they did the same things. Right-to-farm laws don't go far enough to address the problems encountered by farmers who suddenly find themselves surrounded by subdivisions, where "spray drift" is a health concern and other farming activities annoy.
Ironically, it was the plight of farmers who want to continue to farm that drove the passage of Measure 49.
Measure 37 claims scattered across prime farming regions would have resulted in exactly the situation for neighboring farmers that Charles Fischer cites as the reason he deserves to be allowed to turn his farm into housing.
What is fair in this case?
Fair does not take into account the couple's assumption that selling off their land for housing would pay for their retirement. Fair does not count money they spent after legislation was passed to put M49 on the ballot. Fair does count money spent to file the claim in good faith under M37.
If this country had a universal health care system, the Fischers wouldn't have to consider selling their farm. Isn't it time that we made the need for such decisions obsolete?
Ella May T. Wulff
Philomath
Why count only some donations?
The Associated Press article "Obama, Romney atop Northwest money chase" in the Feb. 2 Gazette-Times disturbs me.
If you read it, it excludes all donations of $200 or less, and acts as if the headline is still accurate or relevant.
What it should have said was "Obama, Romney atop Northwest corporate money chase."
Corporations are viewed as people in the eyes of the law, and corporate money is viewed as free speech. But corporate money "speech" should not be counted the same as - indeed instead of - the private money "speech" of individuals.
Later the article says "The most surprising showing was Rep. Ron Paul…" If that was the most surprising, then why wasn't that the headline?
I can't blame AP for following the top primary vote getters, but should they just report report corporate contributions and call it good?
If you count contributions $200 and less, you will find Ron Paul does a lot better. In fact Ron Paul outraised Mitt Romney in the last quarter. Do they report that? No.
Individual, small donations are more important than corporate donations in determining who is working in the people's interest.
Corporations are not "people" no matter what the law says, or the AP. The AP should report all donations, or say so in the headlines.
Jim Sackinger
Corvallis
Editor's note: Headlines that appear on stories from the Associated Press are written by Gazette-Times copy editors.
More measures for economic success
As we look at a looming recession, I recall that "those who ignore history are destined to repeat it."
In the late 1920s my grandfather, who was a wise investor, understood the likely results of rampant speculation and changed his strategy. Although he was a Republican, he was fiscally conservative. His decisions spared our family from the financial distress suffered by most in the 1930s.
In recent decades, the "new conservatives" have attempted to eliminate the institutions created by the Democrats back then.
They have tried to privatize education, health care, Social Security and just about everything else.
They have cut taxes for the rich to promote greater prosperity, a most attractive fiction.
They encouraged unsound lending for subprime mortgages and unsustainable credit card debt.
Our government has borrowed money to support reckless spending on an immoral war for oil rather than calling for sacrifice.
Instead of prosperity, the result will be an uncomfortable downturn in our standard of living.
We need an economy that can be widely shared so that nobody must go without the basic necessities of life: food, housing, health care, education and retirement.
Our tax policies should more adequately support those ends.
Gross national product shouldn't be our only measure of economic success.
Let us also measure how well we do by our youth, our elderly, our minorities, and persons or limited ability. Progressive leaders see it this way.
Robert L. Stebbins
Corvallis
Israel must protect itself from terrorists
In his letter "U.S. should rethink support for Israel" (Jan. 29), Taylor Murray has missed the point.
Nobody, Israel included, wants the people of Gaza to suffer. But their prison is self-made.
I could wax eloquent about the rockets fired daily from Gaza into Israel or the Hamas charter and Hamas spokesmen's statements calling for an end to all of Israel, but the recent suicide bombing in Dimona has made the point better than I ever could.
When Gazan terrorists stop trying to murder and maim Israeli citizens, and when the government of Gaza stops calling for Israel's destruction, there will be no more need for Israel to seal its borders or for the world to boycott a terrorist government.
The blame rests squarely with Hamas.
Rachel Peck
Corvallis
Problems with thesis on global warming
John Jones' letter (Jan. 30) points out many of the problems with the present global warming thesis. Several others could be added.
In a recent Gazette-Times column a dry, low snow winter in the western mountain ranges was predicted, whereas it appears that already high snow records might be set. China is now seeing cold and snow records not observed in recent memory and recently Russia had the coldest year in decades.
We are told the Earth warmed by 0.6 degrees centigrade in the past 100 years, implying that temperatures accurate to a small fraction of a degree were known over that time.
To many of us with scientific backgrounds the claim of such accuracy from conditions affecting carbon dioxide solubility and movementa, oxygen 16/18 ration, etc., in ice at only estimated pressures is unconscionable.
The only actual Earth-wide measurements available over the early part of the century were from ships traveling over selected routes dragging thermometers at unspecificed depths in the ocean.
In principle, satellites can give reasonable, all encompassing data of the Earth's temperatures; but only recently have early calibration problems been resolved to give reliable data.
Although I'm sure the El Nino-La Nina cycling phenomenon has received much attention, one cannot help wondering if that might be behind much of what is actually occurring.
I predict that giving the Nobel Prize to Al Gore (and, incidentally, Gov. Kulongiski relieving George Taylor of his assignment as Oregon's state climatologist) will become major embarrassments of our time.
L. Michael Foster
Corvallis