Letters to the Editor for April 19

Writer has a few questions

These are a few points to ponder.

When our country first started, our representatives had a business or job as their livelihood, and were not paid a salary. When did this change?

Congress wants to lower social Security for seniors who are already getting it. I am one of them. I paid into Social Security for 53 years. The 1970s Social Security was solvent, then Congress decided to institute programs, and they borrowed the money from Social Security, and it has never been paid back.

What is wrong with people on public assistance working for it?

My heart goes out to the people of Japan and their natural disaster problems. What countries helped us with Katrina?

Can we afford to give foreign aid right now? We have homeless and hungry people in our own country we are not taking care of.

Why are we still in a war we cannot afford? Those people have been fighting for centuries and they don't want us there.

A friend of mine told me the other day that a friend of hers gave a kitten to her friend. He in turn gave it to his friend who used it for bait to train his dogs. Do we have dog fighting in our area again?

Dixie Horsmon

Carson City

Ensign envisions U.S. as a third-world nation

I just watched disgraced Sen. Ensign on a Sunday talk show. He was lamenting Washington spending and, to me, reinforcing his lack of judgment.

Where was he when George W. Bush inherited a surplus, and instead of paying down the debt, he gave billions to the wealthiest in the nation? Didn't he - and too many Democrats - vote for the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Didn't he vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout?

If he is so concerned about the debt, how can he vote more tax breaks for millionaires and corporations rather than making that part of any fiscal solution? If these cuts are necessary for job creation, why have we not been flying high for the last 10 years? After the fiascoes at Enron, BP, Bernie Madoff, West Virginia coal mine explosions, etc., he wants to double down and cut regulations for small business.

Most think he is talking about mom and pop operations, but the reality is he wants regulations cut for mega-corporations. He wants the poor and middle class to pay for the follies of the past.

Borrowing money to finance tax breaks for those with the least need is unconscionable. Shredding the social safety net means the poor and middle class ultimately pay for those cuts.

Sen. Ensign obviously envisions America to be a third-world nation where the few live in guarded, gated communities, and once in awhile throw a bone over the fence for the rest of us.

Warren Sprinkle

Carson City

Supervisors' actions show lack of trust in public

This letter is about trust.

On April 7, City Manager Larry Werner and Mayor Bob Crowell testified at the Legislature in opposition to SB 304.

That bill would allow the public to vote on whether they want the supervisors to be elected from the wards they are supposed to represent, or to continue to be elected citywide.

But the board and its $80,000 lobbyist did not discuss the bill in front of the public. When the decision was made to oppose the bill, and ask to have Carson City amended out of it, none of us knows.

We pay lobbyist Mary Walker, but few, if any of us, know what she is lobbying for or against in our names.

The Board of Supervisors does not trust the public enough to let them know just what they are doing.

So here's my question for the board: If you don't trust us, why should we trust you?

Andrea Engleman

Carson City