The president and his mountain bike
Re: “Tense days in Iraq, and across the U.S.,” Aug. 23 editorial.
The Post’s editorial begs for minor correction. It says, “Bush left his mountain bike behind Monday and hit the stump.” Uh-uh. The bike goes everywhere he goes. Reports are he went mountain biking with the Idaho governor at a new resort there on Tuesday.
Bush even took the bike to the G-8 Summit in Scotland in May, where he managed to crash into a policeman there. If the other seven world leaders had taken their bikes, it would have seemed rather childish, don’t you think?
The bike is Bush’s latest obsession. He has been described as a “maniac,” reckless on the bike. He has managed to spill over the handlebars or crash at least three times. And yet taxpayers are spending an inestimable amount for Secret Service to protect his derriere from harm otherwise. For Bush, discretion does not seem to be the better part of valor.
M.D. Cargill, Montrose
Referendums C and D: Tax grab or fiscal fix?
Re: “Poll on Nov. referendums shows waning opposition,” Aug. 24 news story.
Regardless of how it’s packaged, Referendum C, if passed will be the largest single tax-dollar grab in Colorado history. Though it doesn’t technically raise the tax rate, it increases spending authorization by billions, bypassing TABOR-mandated limits.
Referendum C also allows the state to spend the money pretty much any way it wants, including new programs that will then have to be funded in the future. If you don’t seriously believe they would add programs, all you have to do is look at some of the bills that didn’t make it through this year’s legislature that specifically referenced getting their funding from Referendum C monies, even though it had not even been passed.
However, the biggest problem with Referendum C is that it doesn’t resolve or even address the conflicting requirements of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the Gallagher Amendment, Amendment 23 and federally mandated spending. Instead of facing and fixing these problems, the legislature has taken the Wimpy “I’ll gladly pay you next Tuesday, for a hamburger today” approach, with the hamburger being more than 3 billion tax dollars.
Referendum C promises to reduce the tax rate in the future but only if the economy allows for it. It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict the likelihood of actually getting the promised tax rate decrease after this spending binge.
Kevin Lavarnway, Denver
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Senior organizations are endorsing state Referendums C and D, to be voted on in November.
The 2001-02 recession put our state government in a severe financial crisis.
Many senior programs have been cut: Medicaid transportation, Meals on Wheels, in-home care, adult day care, health care for the elderly, assisted-living staff, to name a few.
Other programs affecting seniors have been cut, including clean water, fire protection and law enforcement, library service, education, recreation centers, and the homestead tax subsidy. The list goes on and on.
Referendums C and D do not change constitutional provisions within the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The referendums provide a five-year timeout from mandated TABOR rebates to provide critical funding to state programs.
This is not an increase in taxes. A “yes” vote will not affect federal or state tax refunds. Voters are being asked to give up their TABOR rebate for five years. This amounts to $30 to $40 a year for most seniors. In most cases, people will not miss the rebate – since a TABOR rebate has not been made since 2001.
We need to get Colorado’s budget back on track – where there will be no more large cuts to services for the frail, vulnerable, low-income senior.
This is a non-partisan solution that puts Colorado first. Let us move Colorado forward and vote for the passage of Referendums C and D.
Mike Drake, President, Colorado Senior Lobby, Denver
Fern Osborne, Chairman, Older Americans Coalition, Denver
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Re: “State faces brain drain if C, D fail,” Aug. 24 Jim Spencer column.
In his rush to plug TABOR-busting Referendum C, Jim Spencer conveniently overlooks the abject failure of our government to hold our state colleges responsible for their self-proclaimed dismal state.
Spencer, through a local high-tech employer, argues we need to raise taxes in order to stave off cuts to higher education. Well, this taxpayer is tired of seeing his tax dollars supporting a state university “party school” that openly and unabashedly fosters an atmosphere of alcoholic excess – even accumulating a half-million-dollar bar tab at taxpayer expense – while at the same time hiring, tenuring and promoting a national embarrassment like the infamous Ward Churchill. Rather than gorging itself on increased public funding, our esteemed state university should instead go on the wagon and trim the Ward Churchills from its faculty.
We don’t need to raise taxes to improve higher education; we need our state colleges to stop wasting money and start teaching students something besides debauchery and subversion.
Anthony J. Fabian, Aurora
Libraries and languages
Re: “Fotonovela subscriptions ended,” Aug. 24 news story.
It is ridiculous to force an English-only policy on any American public library. I’m a fourth-generation American. Look at my legal name, signed below. It’s English, French and Spanish, reflecting the intermarriages that have occurred in my family. I can – and do – read all three languages. The availability of library books in foreign languages, especially books written at an easy-to-read level, can be a valuable source of personal enrichment as one learns a secondary or tertiary language. Unfortunately, it seems that some people would like to eliminate this important resource.
Monolingualism is certainly no crime, but I believe that militant monolingualism is.
Mary Cécile Penland de García, Boulder
Objection to private dam
Re: “Corps orders dam’s removal,” Aug. 22 news story.
Everyone should be alarmed and outraged by the cynical actions of Dr. Randall Lortscher and Kip Kochevar, owners of the private Topaz Mountain Ranch, who diverted a public stretch of Tarryall Creek onto their property and fenced off nearby public land. The issue transcends politics. What mindset and level of greed are required to brazenly move a rare public stretch of this stream, thereby making it inaccessible to families and people whose taxes support the care of the Pike National Forest? Call it what it is: stealing. Prosecution of this theft would send a message and help preserve people’s rights to enjoy Colorado’s public land, a heritage and tradition worth protecting.
David Shults, Colorado Springs
Denver homelessness
Re: “Tough love needed with panhandlers,” Aug. 24 editorial.
In your editorial advocating “tough love” for the Denver homeless, you mention that they collect $4.6 million a year in handouts. According to Mayor John Hickenlooper’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, there are approximately 4,700 homeless people in Denver. The math works out to about $980 per homeless person per year. That could be tough to live on for most of us.
It seems premature to be calling for a redirection of money before the mayor’s program is implemented. What are these people to do in the meantime?
Michael J. Blandford, Littleton
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