Estate tax
Re: “Colorado votes in Congress,” June 11 news roundup.
Thanks to Sen. Ken Salazar for voting for fiscal sanity on June 8. At a time when our nation faces costly priorities such as the war in Iraq, homeland security, and the need to shore up Social Security and Medicare, the senator stood up for middle-class taxpayers when faced with the decision on spending nearly $1 trillion to repeal the estate tax.
I would urge Salazar to continue to keep these fiscal realities in mind. There needs to be a reasonable compromise that would exempt the vast majority of Americans from estate-tax liability, while allowing the remaining few to plan with certainty, and preserving much- needed revenue for other priorities. The most sensible and sustainable proposal thus far is one that was recently introduced by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., which would “freeze” the estate tax rates at projected 2009 levels.
Michael Weinberg, Denver
Editor’ note: Salazar voted no on a procedural measure that would have allowed a vote on the estate tax last week. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., voted yes.
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The future of energy
Re: “Looking for a drilling blance,” June 10 editorial.
The natural resource policies of President Bush and the GOP will leave future generations not only financially bankrupt, but also resource-poor. The expedited development of natural resources to serve our current wasteful demands will leave fewer resources available to serve future needs. It’s simply unsustainable.
Forget oil shale. If the 800 billion barrels projected to be “technically recoverable” in Western states could be commercially produced for $30 a barrel, oil would be “too cheap to meter” because of such a massive increase in supply. Except for coal, we do not have the fossil energy resources to serve anywhere near our current demand.
We do, however, have the intellectual and financial resources to develop tomorrow’s energy resources to meet the rapidly growing global demand. The sooner we engage in a serious program to improve efficiency and develop non- carbon fuels, the sooner we will balance our trade deficit, reduce our impact on global warming and minimize our vulnerability to terrorists.
Greg Scott, Evergreen
Mount Evans’ toll road
In 1996, the U.S. Forest Service installed a toll booth on Colorado 5,
which goes to the top of Mount Evans from Echo Lake. It was to be a
two-year demonstration program to find out how the public felt about
paying for access to our public lands, which we already support with our
federal taxes.
It’s now been 10 years and the public is still paying $10 to drive on a
state highway built and maintained by the Colorado Department of
Transportation.
The department doesn’t get any of the money collected, and our state
taxes help maintain the highway. As far as I can tell, most of the fees are
used to pay for a number of vehicles and the employees needed to collect
and enforce the fee law.
The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act specifically disallows
the Forest Service from charging for entrance fees to hike, walk, bicycle,
float or drive through a national forest. The Forest Service and the
Bureau of Land Management continue to charge citizens for simple access
and use of our public lands in blatant violation of these provisions.
Our legislators in Washington, D.C., need to hear from us and take action
to see that the act is repealed.
To learn more, visit www.westernslopenofee.org.
Roswell Brown, Lakewood
Standing up for the United Nations
It’s probably futile to argue with
a duck, but Mallard Fillmore’s tedious
rantings about the United
Nations should not go unchallenged.
Cartoonist Bruce Tinsley
has consistently blown every perceived
fault in the U.N. wildly out
of proportion, while conveniently
ignoring all of the good that has
been accomplished.
He has criticized the oil-forfood
program without acknowledging
the fact that it succeeded in
its primary goal of relieving the
suffering of the Iraqi people. He
has exaggerated every scandal
while ignoring and belittling the efforts
at reform. Now he is running
down the new and admittedly imperfect
Human Rights Council.
He fails to note that scrutiny of the
council members has been markedly
improved, and many of the
most serious rights abusers like
Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe, Eritrea,
Syria and many others no longer
even dare to run for positions.
Mr. Tinsley, nobody claims that
the U.N. is perfect. If we want to
change it for the better, what is the
more prudent course of action? To
constructively engage with the
other member states in pursuing
an active agenda of reform, or to
sulk like a spoiled child and pursue
a course of obstructionism?
James J. Amato, Advocacy Chair,
Pikes Peak Chapter, United
Nations Association of the USA,
Woodland Park
Denver Water’s conservation plan
Re: “Denver Water’s plan to conserve
is sound,” June 12 editorial.
Kudos to Denver Water for its
new water-saving plan, and double
congrats to The Denver Post
for recognizing worthwhile conservation.
Several questions linger: What
is the cost benefit of the plan and
who foots the real bills? Would an
equal effort in agricultural irrigation
efficiency and electric power
generation have created a comparable
20 percent savings?
With almost 80 percent of all Colorado
water used for those twocategories,
it would seem that saving 20
percent of 80 percent has a chance
to be a bigger number than 20 percent
of the roughly 14 percent of the
statewide domestic water use. That
comparison yields numbers like a 2
percent overall savings for Denver
Water’s plan versus potential agricultural
and power savings of 16
percent. It will take big savings to
prepare us for the population of 7
million projected for Colorado in
2025. Small and costly programs,
while newsworthy and very socially
desirable, may not make the crucial
difference .
Jack Flobeck, Chairman, Aqua
Prima Center, Colorado Springs
