Economic stimulus is tax cuts vs infrastructure
To the Editor:
The debate over the economic stimulus plan seems to have boiled down to whether tax cuts or infrastructure investments will do the most for our declining economy.
Thinking about this pragmatically, there should be no argument here at all. Either way, future generations will be saddled with mountains of debt that they will need to pay off through income taxes.
When I look at my three-year-old granddaughter, I can only feel sorry for her impending situation. If we choose tax cuts, all of us will feel good about the immediate relief we get and spend or save the windfall. If we choose infrastructure investments the economy will be stimulated by the creation of jobs, spending on goods and services; and, my granddaughter and all the other people of her generation will benefit from the infrastructure improvements that we will leave behind.
This seems like an easy choice to me: the future workers of America should at least get some benefit for the taxes that they will be paying to retire the debt left to them by our generation.
Eric Olsen
Goldendale
Employees should take pay cuts too
To the Editor:
Here we go again - the government is not going to have enough money. Government agencies are going to have to lay off employees.
I have worked for 32 years with a major U.S. airline and in the 1980s, when the airline industry was having survival challenges, all the employees took pay cuts for months at a time. We didn't like it but we learned to manage our incomes to stay financially stable and survive.
With the present nationwide financial crisis, many people in private industries, from business owners to workers to retirees are looking at less income.
That said, when is the last time you ever heard of a government employee taking a pay cut? It's always, "We have to lay a few people off so you can expect less service," or, "Where can we raise additional taxes to cover the coming shortfall?"
I recently addressed a similar letter to Gov. Gregoire suggesting she lead the way by requiring government workers to take pay cuts and taking one herself. Think she will? I doubt it.
So far government employees have been above taking pay cuts and with their strong unions have even been getting pay raises. Meanwhile, the people that pay their wages are getting by on less income. Maybe this financial crisis will change that. Time will tell.
Bruce Buchanan
Lyle
New Year reminds us of passing time
To the Editor:
Time certainly seems to fly by the older I get. The year 2008 is history and here we are already in the fifth week of 2009. It reminds me of the hymn with the words, "Swiftly, so swiftly doth time pass..."
How true it is that with every passing year we are nearing the time of our death. Perhaps this causes fear in some hearts which are not prepared and joy in the hearts of those who await the coming of Jesus. Therefore, all of us need to consider what the Apostle Paul has written in 1 Cor 15:34 about awakinging to righteousness, and in Romans 6:23, when he says: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life..."
It was for this reason that Jesus came on that first Christmas and suffered and died on Good Friday's cross. Let us not carry our sins, but lay them there at the foot of the cross in true repentance and be sprinkled with the precious blood of atonement.
We know not the time of our death.
Richard Rhoades
Centerville |
