Whether it is water or taxes, ‘fair share’ for everyone needs to be considered
Re: “We can’t let fields become a wasteland of swirling dirt and noxious weeds,” April 5 commentary, and “Even at tax time, it’s good to be a billionaire,” April 5 finance column
Sunday’s Post featured two articles that speak to the necessity of seeing connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. In the Perspective section, Krista Kafer has depicted the dire conditions of Colorado’s parched Eastern Plains. Our diminishing water resources are being directed toward expanding cities. There must be a sincere collaboration between agricultural and residential development if we are all to prosper.
In a similar vein, the Business section featured an article on our inequitable national tax structure, which enables the wealthy to grow their wealth while most people, besieged by income taxes and rising property taxes, struggle.
The Post presents these two pictures, where there is an imbalance of resources — water and wealth. It is imperative to observe and address disparities where people and our natural world suffer due to myopic, self-centered behaviors. We are all connected. When one of us is unduly harmed, we are all inevitably diminished.
Evan Siegel, Westminster
Sometimes, you have to let the weeds take hold
Re: “We can’t let fields become a wasteland of swirling dirt and noxious weeds,” April 5 commentary
Good piece about water rights and noxious weeds. Reclaiming larger vacant rural landscapes with native plants is a very difficult, expensive, and lengthy process.
I spent much of my career as a landscape architect developing strategies for re-vegetating disturbed landscapes. While non-native weeds are a problem, they are here to stay. There is no realistic way to prevent them. We must accept that, while native landscape plant species are desirable in many ways, they generally can’t compete with invasive weeds in the short term. In some ways, non-native plants help stabilize soils while native species get a foothold. Keep in mind that weeds have evolved some very strong strategies to thrive in disturbed soil, despite farmers’ exhaustive efforts to control them.
Each of those farms you mentioned with vacant dry fields requires the resources to stabilize the soil, native grass and forb seeding, mulching and some follow-up repairs. The legal requirements should be more specific. It is not going to happen by itself in our dry, windy climate. I wouldn’t worry too much about the weeds until the vegetation is established.
After all, many of us, including those of European ancestry, are a type of invasive species. We want to live here too.
Frank Miltenberger, Denver
Thankful to lawmakers as they try to tackle state budget in tight fiscal times
:“Medicaid to take brunt of budget cuts,” April 5 news story
Thank you to Nick Coltrain and Meg Wingerter for a well-written, comprehensive look at the impossible budget situation the Joint Budget Committee and our state find itself in.
Bethany Pray of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy summed it up well with her quote, “We have a red-state budget and we have blue-state ideals …”
It is sad that good and humane policy is considered “blue state,” however. Or that restrictive fiscal policy is “red state.” But those are the times we live in. And the clash of ideologies must now be balanced on the backs of many hardworking people trying to keep their children out of institutional care and on the Medicaid providers that support them. The pain will be widespread. But particularly acute among the disabled population.
I am the full-time caregiver of an adult child on a Medicaid waiver. It gives our son access to an excellent day program. The providers barely make a living wage. Medicaid covers his medical needs. Those providers often operate at a loss. He requires 24/7 care, and we can meet his daily care needs without additional Medicaid assistance. But most families caring for a severely disabled child are not so fortunate. They are living on the edge.
Thank you to the public servants wrestling with impossible decisions. I hope our state makes the right choices at the ballot box come November and our leaders continue to explore fundamental changes to this fiscal vise we find ourselves in. Thank you to the reporters for providing an understanding of the complexities and consequences of the choices before the lawmakers. The more we all understand, the better we can all work toward long-term sustainable solutions.
Karen Roberts, Denver
Budget season is a time to reappraise what is important to the flourishing of Coloradans. It is time to dispel nakedly partisan worldviews and find common ground.
Reducing medical funding for the most vulnerable and marginalized in our community sends the exact wrong message about who we are as a state. We are at our best when we support those who face unimaginable physical/economic burdens with pride and dignity.
Rather than cut payments to families with children who have severe disabilities or pregnant immigrant women and children, can we consider withdrawing Medicaid payments for elective abortions?
Elective abortions for low-income women were previously subsidized using private money from the Cobalt Abortion Fund and other abortion advocacy non-profits. This is where funding for such morally controversial medical interventions belongs.
Public funding doesn’t increase abortion access but simply shifts the burden of funding abortions from private sources to the taxpayer. Letap put those millions of Medicaid dollars to the service of our disabled children and needy immigrant community.
Tom Perille, Englewood
Republican Party hung the heavy price on health care
Re: “Health care costs are forcing terrible trade-offs” April 5 commentary
In reading Sunday’s Perspective section, this column stood out from all the others.
The reasons for our health care situation fall in the lap of the Republican Party. It has been trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act since it was established, and in all that time, it has never come up with an alternative plan. Instead, it just keeps chipping away at the social safety net of most Americans.
This problem has been exacerbated by President Trump’s Department of Defense/ War, which has us engaged in another costly and senseless war in Iran.
We live in the wealthiest country in the world, and yet millions go without basic health care. This is causing people to skip their medications and actually go without health insurance altogether.
The result of this action is that hospitals still have to treat patients who come to them when their illness has progressed to the point that their care is actually more expensive. This makes absolutely no sense, and when the Department of Defense/War is asking for $1.5 trillion in addition to an enormous budget for ICE, it shows how far off our policies are for the American people.
This is not a Republican or Democratic issue, but rather a very grave policy issue putting the health crisis facing the American people in an untenable position. People will die because of a lack of medical care and ultimately cost our country more money. Basic health care is a right, not a privilege. Letap start putting our budget where it can do the most good for all of us.
David Shaw, Highlands Ranch
In defense of the Democratic caucuses and grassroots organizing
Re: “Time to end caucuses in Colorado,” March 29 commentary
Itap no surprise, but still disappointing to see the entrenched and moneyed political interests working hard to rid our democracy of grassroots community organizing to get their candidates on the ballot.
Columnist Doug Friednash describes the caucus process as “deeply flawed, and an undemocratic way” to select candidates.
The opposite is true. It is Friednash’s favorites who have enough money to buy their way onto the ballot through the petition process and buy their way into winning the election with the loads of cash that will flow into their primary and general election coffers.
Our two entrenched and uber-well-financed U.S. Senators thumbed their noses at the caucus process. In reality, their centrist pandering to Republican colleagues in the Senate is deeply unpopular. Grassroots caucus activists, with very little or no money, are holding them accountable. Hickenlooper voted for 10 of the presidentap 22 cabinet appointments, and Bennet voted for eight. Did they miss the anti-democratic and dictatorial statements of the president prior to these votes?
The Denver Post gave Friednash, a corporate Democratic centrist mouthpiece, the opportunity to take swipes at Melat Kiros, who garnered nearly two-thirds of the caucus vote for the 1st Congressional District race. Itap the incumbent senators and the CD 1 incumbent who are the “extreme radical candidates” who are out of touch with Colorado Democrats and our state’s values.
John Gudvangen, Denver
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