Letters to the editor for Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013

Budget proposals would take millions from local economy

A small group of elected officials in Congress is currently leading the effort to find common ground on a budget proposal to avoid a repeat of the federal government shutdown and prevent sequestration in the coming years. Those are goals many Americans support. But how we get there could have devastating effects right here in Nevada.

Among the proposals under consideration is an extension of the three-year federal employee pay freeze and a cut in take-home pay for federal employees through an increase in federal retirement contributions. If the committee is unable to agree on a path forward, then more furloughs of vital federal workers are almost sure to occur.

Many people think that federal employees are concentrated in the Washington, D.C. area, but the truth of the matter is that over 85 percent live and work outside D.C. The federal government is one of our state’s largest employers. So, when you cut the paychecks on Nevada’s middle-class federal employees, you’re also harming our state’s economy and local businesses.

I urge Nevada’s members of Congress to reject these proposals which would take millions of dollars away from our local economy next year and weaken our federal workforce for years to come.

Charles Brinkman

Stagecoach

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McAdoo’s columns always chafe me, as he bases them on theories and half-truths. As I’ve learned in plane geometry, that just doesn’t work. He states that “ultra-conservatives” and creationists disown landing on the moon and believe the earth is flat. If McAdoo seriously believes that Christians think the earth is flat because a few deranged cultists decided it was so, he has a severe lack of common sense. Following that logic, we know that water is impossible to drink because cyanide, strychnine, and ricin are known to be water soluble. On the Apollo 8 flight, Anders, Lovell, and Borman read the first 10 verses of Genesis. Buzz Aldrin, one of the three Apollo 11 astronauts, performed Christian communion before leaving the landing module. Because of this, NASA was sued by Murray O’Hair.

His articles are nothing more or less than liberal dogma laced with half-truths. McAdoo points his finger at “ultra conservatives” in another fashion — he claims they want to change science and history. He’s right! But what he doesn’t bother to add is that they want to change it back to the science and history that got us to the moon. The story of history and science which is currently being preached in public schools was instituted after Sputnik was launched on the basis that the Russians were beating us in the space race. Although the ideologies from “Grandmother’s apron” got us to the moon, the system instituted was given credit for the victory.

Matthew Woodruff

Fallon