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Letters for March 9, 2023
Rein In Inflation Act
Our representative, CMR, is now bragging about HR 347, the Rein In Inflation Act. This is the Republicans’ solution to inflation. It’s a bill for a mandatory reporting requirement related to executive orders that will cost more than $1 billion and how this amount will impact inflation. This might apply to two or three executive orders a year.
This is the GOP’s response to inflation after telling the entire country that they had some kind of brilliant solution that was going to help right now. This will have zero effect on inflation now or in the future especially since it has a “basic drafting error” that makes this bill unenforceable. Go figure.
Carrie Cadenas
Spokane
Building better means change
I love reading “Ask the Builder” every Sunday in the paper. Most problems he’s asked to resolve is someone while building something saved a few bucks by cutting corners. His recommendations, if even reversible, will now require several hundred or thousands of dollars.
The same argument(s) can be applied to the current lawsuit challenging the state Building Code Council over natural gas restrictions. I, too, love and use natural gas, but we now have proven better options that are less polluting and more climate friendly, our current deadly enemies.
So please, (1) Whatsoever is obvious to those challenging the BCC, it is also obvious to its 15 members. They hear and see both sides. (2) Previous challenges to BCC decisions to change housing studwall standards from 2-by-4 to 2-by-6, double pane windows or insulation R values also raised the cost of housing. Everyone is now thankful for their vision!
Science shows the status quo is unsustainable. I will support natural gas for exceptional uses but not for general heating or otherwise just to save a few dollars. It takes wisdom and vision to leave this earth better than we found it for future generations!
Phil Zammit
Spokane
Dealing with feral cats
I am sure most everyone agrees that the ideal situation is for all cats to be socialized and living indoors in a spacious loving home with plenty of toys and food and a screened in catio so they can enjoy the outdoors safely.
Unfortunately, there are millions more cats than ideal homes and animal shelters do not have the space or resources to house them all. So what options are left besides trap/neuter/return? Should they all be rounded up and a few put into the spaces available in shelters and the rest of them slaughtered? If we do nothing, they will be out there breeding and making the situation exponentially more desperate. Spay/neuter/return may not be the ideal and it may not reduce the numbers of homeless cats as fast as we would like, but at least it gives many of the kitties a chance to survive and live a half-decent outdoor life. All of the alternatives to trap/neuter/return/release are worse.
Kerry Masters
Liberty Lake
Worst invasive species is us
Madonna Luers bashes feral cats as being “invasive species” and “the number one cause of bird deaths” for killing 2.4 billion birds annually in the U.S.
However, we humans are much bigger bird killers than feral cats. Americans eat more than 9 billion chickens a year and 270 million turkeys.
The egg industry kills billions more. Even if we are strict vegans, we cause devastating losses to birds through habitat loss, collisions with vehicles and the glass of buildings we have built.
Maybe humans should quit pointing their fingers at cats and other animals that we think are in our way and face the fact that we are the worst invasive species causing both death and destruction.
Trap/neuter/return is the very best solution for cats. Too bad we can’t do TNR for humans too.
Christy Anderlik
Liberty Lake