Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Legislator’s job involves thinking

The front page article regarding the goings on in the state Legislature, “House Republicans on a quest for unity,” (News, Feb. 8) is the most disgusting piece on politics I think I have ever read. How do these people think they got where they are? Who do they report to? What is their purpose?

Bonehead Rep. Brad Benson (R-Spokane) says he may have to vote against issues he supports.

Here is a clue: I do not care what he supports. I care how he votes and I’ll be watching. That is how he got where he is and that is how he will be retained or removed. As for his military experience, how many elected officers did he encounter?

Benson was elected to think, not act like a member of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Light Brigade. Tom I. Cameron Spokane

Support vehicle tax initiative

Initiative 695 seeks to set license tab fees at $30 per year for your motor vehicle, regardless of make, model, year or value. If it succeeds, it would cost just $30 next year to license your car, sport utility vehicle, motorcycle, motor home, etc.

The outrageous, expensive excise taxes and fees we currently pay - some of the highest in the nation - would be repealed. And to keep our tax-and-spend representatives from future taxes, the initiative would require voter approval for any tax increase.

The initiative would solve a big problem that hurts families every year. Many people drive older cars because they can’t afford the annual license fees for newer ones.

I-695 is a common sense approach and is being received well and supported by people and organizations who become aware of it. Any issue, even one as sensible as this requires people to gather signatures and make everyone aware of it. Anyone who would like to help get I-695 on the ballot or wants more information can call (509) 467-5467. Leo J. Fagan Spokane

FIELD BURNING

We’re seeing a bumper crop of clout

Farmers like to portray themselves as powerless victims battered by low prices, regulatory bullies and the militant mothers of asthmatic children. Yet somehow, these folks who have been, by their own account, on the verge of financial ruin for four generations, have the political clout to silence anyone who opposes them.

Last year, mayors of rural towns ousted Spokane Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers from the county’s clean air board because she dared to oppose grass burning. Last month, wheat growers took control of the Department of Ecology. This regulatory agency, charged with protecting our air quality, is now nothing more than a subsidiary of the wheat industry.

As if that’s not enough, wheat growers have introduced legislation (House Bill 1148) which would simply exempt wheat stubble burning from the state’s clean air law altogether.

The icing on this special interest cake is the constitutional amendment (introduced by a group of rural legislators last week) which would require extensive signature gathering in rural areas before any initiative could be presented for a vote of the people. If this passes, rural residents would have absolute control over the initiative process and Spokane residents would never be able to vote on the issue of wheat stubble burning.

Farmers comprise less than 1 percent of the population, yet they control the Department of Ecology and own the Legislature. They force us to breathe their toxic waste, to endure illness, pay medical bills, purchase expensive air cleaners and suffer without recourse. Are the farmers the victims here? I think not. Vivian Burgard Spokane

Credibility problem crops up

Strange things are going on with wheat stubble, it seems. The state Department of Ecology plans to let farmers voluntarily reduce burning 50 percent by 2006. The question is, reduce from what?

Phasing down from the 229,000 acres burned last year would allow farmers to continue high levels of burning far into the future. But records show only 39,000 acres where burned four years ago. Washington Association of Wheat Growers spokesman Brett Blankenship says farmers should not be held to 1995 levels because there was a lot of non-permitted burning going on. How interesting.

Permits have been required for wheat stubble burning for 26 years. Is Blankenship saying 39,000 acres of wheat were burned legally in 1995, while a whopping 200,000 additional acres were illegally scorched? Were growers being dishonest in 1995 to avoid paying for permits or are they being dishonest now, when they want credit for high burning levels so the phase down won’t impact them?

These are important questions because farmers have successfully convinced Ecology officials that they can be trusted to voluntarily reduce burning emissions. If farmers have been deceiving the government by the massive amounts claimed by Blankenship or if they are now falsely claiming high acreage to protect themselves from a reduction, do we really want to trust them to monitor their own burning? What other industries are allowed to voluntarily control their pollution without enforcement or penalties? Why are these guys being given special treatment?

The Department of Ecology owes the public some answers. David A. Resler Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

Dams hardly salmon’s main problem

Will breaching the dams save the salmon runs? What about these other factors affecting salmon:

Nine years of El Nino resulted in reduction of water flow in headwaters of spawning streams. Less water in streams results in higher water temperatures and increased predation of fingerlings. In the ocean, El Nino increased water temperatures, decreasing plankton production so that young salmon had less food. Three or more years of El Nino affect salmon run viability.

Long, illegal drift nets are used by some Asian countries.

Marine mammals at mouths of rivers feed on salmon. A news reporter counted 500 gill nets on the Columbia River.

Walleye pike introduced into the Columbia are predators of smaller fish.

Fish-eating birds prey on young salmon.

Large pumps used to draw irrigation water from the Columbia River system were reported to have sucked up 35,000 to 40,000 young salmon every 24 hours.

Fish experts have said some salmon runs have dropped below self-sustaining levels.

A complex problem such as this cannot be reduced to one quick fix that will give the desired results. Increasing human populations and their demands on the ecosystem may have doomed the Columbia River salmon runs.

A good landscape ecologist should examine this problem so it can be defined more accurately than in past efforts by well-meaning people who lack such training. Gene Carpenter Moscow, Idaho

Many things affect kokanee

Before we get all emotional over losing the Lake Pend Oreille kokanee, let’s remember the species is not native to the lake.

Consider also that three years ago, an independent group of experts looked at the proposed Idaho Department of Fish and Game study and warned that results would be inconclusive because too many factors were at work and too few were being studied independently.

For example, mysis shrimp were introduced about the same time kokanee began to decline. Is this a classic case of man meddling with ecosystems? The shrimp, combined with increased hatchery releases, created an imbalance of predators - lake trout, bull trout, and rainbow. Historically, these factors have been documented as working together to wipe out kokanee in similar lakes, like Flathead in Montana. The IDFG study of Lake Pend Oreille does not just minimize this data, it denies it.

The IDFG would rather chase rabbits and increase spawning beds before it even takes the time to measure the beds it has. A study that’s going to cost taxpayers and ratepayers millions of dollars should at least be based on sound principles. I want to save the kokanee as much as the next guy, but why would we put this Titanic in the water for another seven years when it sank after the first three years?

If Pend Oreille County utilities seems to be the bad guy for crying about lost profits, why do you think Sandpoint and Lake Pend Oreille businesses are so concerned about losing the kokanee? Frank B. Cicero, Jr. Newport, Wash.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Reaganomics - be rich or be careful

The recent debate in Couer d’Alene on whether to raise property taxes or sales taxes points out the major fault of Reaganomics. The debate is over which tax is the least unfair to the middle class and poor. Both taxes are in fact regressive and impose unfairly on the middle class and poor, just as most state and local taxes do.

In the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address, it was stated that the average American now pays 40 percent of income in federal, state and local taxes. What they didn’t mention is that in 1980, before Reaganomics, the rate was 33 percent. After 20 years of Reaganomics tax cutting, how is it possible that average Americans see the amount they pay in taxes increase by more than 20 percent?

The typical Republican response is that it’s due to Clinton’s 1993 tax increase. But that only increased taxes on people with incomes exceeding $135,000 - not exactly the middle class. The real reason is that Reaganomics has changed this country’s basic tax structure. Its huge cuts in the federal progressive tax system forced greater financial burdens on state and local governments. They responded by increasing regressive taxes: sales taxes, property taxes, vehicle registration fees, state university tuition - the list goes on. State and local taxes have doubled since 1980.

Remember to look at tax cuts before blindly signing on to them. Whenever you support the cutting of a federal progressive tax you are agreeing to pay more in regressive taxes. This increases your own tax load, unless you happen to be in the $500,000-a-year tax bracket. Vern P. Stevens Kellogg, Idaho

Columnist’s notions tax reality

Re: David Broder’s Feb. 9 Opinion page column.

Broder makes some good points. Unfortunately, he also says some incorrect and really stupid things.

Broder thinks a modest 10 percent tax cut, which he calls “huge,” would eliminate the surplus. The Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts demonstrate otherwise. The most striking example is the 1980-1990 period when the top income tax rates declined from 70 percent to 23 percent and federal tax receipts increased by about 100 percent.

To further justify keeping all of our tax overpayment, he quotes Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to the effect that two thirds of a refund would go to the top 20 percent of earners. So what? Data from the IRS in 1996 reveals that the top 25 percent of earners paid 81 percent of federal income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of earners paid 4 percent! Worse yet, the language suggests that “high earners” are unworthy and are not entitled to the fruits of their effort. This kind of rhetoric is obscene and dangerous.

Most high earners are that by virtue of foresight, planning, hard work, education, investment and wealth creation. Most of them passed up short-term gratification and the easy course to achieve success. What does Rubin think high earners will do with money they are allowed to keep, burn it? Obviously, they will either spend or invest it. Either action will help keep the economy strong and those tax revenues rolling in! Larry L. Morrison Harrison, Idaho

First, make trust fund sound

Social Security funds were “borrowed” to pay war debts during both World War II and the Korean War. To many of us at the time, it appeared, however, that the funds appeared shortly in improved salaries and benefits for our elected leadership and their staffs.

I clearly remember teaching U.S. history and government during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and making the point to my classes that if this practice were to continue, sooner or later there would develop serious problems with and shortages within the Social Security trust fund.

Hello, 1999!

As these funds were borrowed in the name of the American people to pay serious debts, now it is time for our government to look first at making the trust fund sound for the American people who really need it. They then can worry about tax cuts which would aid big business and upper-upper middle class and wealthy citizens, mostly. William E. Cahill Nine Mile Falls

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Question not asked tells the tale

It’s apparent that we no longer have the ability to step back from an issue and use reason. We act on emotions, fueled by those that would rather us not stop, research the issue and then form an opinion. I refer to the Clinton mess.

After re-reading the Federalist Papers dealing with government, some writings of Thomas Jefferson and after listening to constitutional scholars not affiliated with either party, I have reached this conclusion. The question that should be asked by all of us is the question that the House failed to ask. Did Clinton’s actions threaten to compromise the security and well-being of this country and its citizens?

This is what I believe is meant by “bribery, treason and other high crimes aznd misdemeanors.” Unless Ken Starr can show that Monica Lewinsky is really a modern-day Mata Hari, I believe the answer is no. Therefore, Clinton should not be removed from office. However, he should be punished if found guilty of the charges against him. That is for the proper court of law to decide. If found guilty he should receive a punishment that fits the crime. The following example will illustrate this. A man runs into a store, grabs some merchandise and leaves. Another runs in, holds a gun on the clerk, grabs cash and leaves. Both are caught. Both are guilty of the same crime: stealing. Does the man who did not threaten anyone receive the same penalty as the man who did? John D. McCallum Spokane

Moral failure now on all our heads

We we have been given a free choice for moral, spiritual and ethical behavior. When man chooses moral and ethical behavior, the children, families, communities and ultimately the world is cared for and becomes a better place to live. When immorality and unethical behavior dominate, children, families and ultimately the world suffer.

When there is immorality and lack of ethics, laws and regulations proliferate to compensate for man’s lack of self-control. When man governs himself properly, laws are not as necessary. When a nation has a moral, spiritual and ethical leader, it thrives and prospers. When a leader fails, the nation fails. We are in a period of leadership that has failed miserably.

This leader has shown the most remarkable lack of morality and ethics ever publicly flaunted by the most blatant of Hollywood playboys and girls, and the national polls say most Americans think it is tolerable as long as the economy is good.

I admit to being old-fashioned and my straight-laced undergarment is showing, but I still have the most awful time believing that people really believe this.

Bill Clinton may have been impeached and not convicted, but America will be charged with negligence and failure to protect her children for a long time to come. Shirley Hethorn Oldtown, Idaho