Our $3.2 billion deficit
Friday, October 3, 2008 3:39 PM PDT
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Our $3.2 billion deficit
Why, at a time when Gov. Sarah Palin can return tax money to the citizens of Alaska, has Gov. Chris Gregoire created a $3.2 billion deficit? Why does she continue to deny that we have this $3.2 billion deficit breathing down the neck of taxpayers?
Why do we continue to have a staff of government economic forecasters on the payroll telling the governor of the economic storm on the horizon, if she doesn’t believe in economic forecasting and refuses to act on their projections or even recognize the facts that are slapping her in the face?
Gregoire says, “We are the envy of other states” and “We have a budget surplus.”
How can you lead with your head in the sand?
Gregoire’s fellow Democratic governors have declared their projected deficits (which are smaller than ours) an “economic crisis” and have called special sessions of their legislatures to start acting on the problems.
If Gregoire won’t act, then maybe the voters will. Let’s declare the economic crisis ourselves and elect Dino Rossi as our action plan.
Yes, it is time for a change.
Bob Peters
Longview
Education matters
Barack Obama: Occidental College, two years; Columbia University, bachelor of arts in political science with a specialization in international relations; Harvard, Juris Doctor, Magna Cum Laude.
Joe Biden: University of Delaware, bachelor of arts in history and bachelor of arts in political science; Syracuse University College of Law, Juris Doctor.
John McCain: United States Naval Academy, class rank 894 of 899.
Sarah Palin: five universities in 6 years, journalism degree.
Susan Prewitt
Longview
Say it ain’t so Joe
With the recent rush by most media players to compare Sarah Palin as a neophyte on foreign policy and the intellectual inferior to Joe Biden, I thought it appropriate to mention a portion of an interview he recently had with Katie Couric. When asked about the financial crisis currently swamping Wall Street and most investors, Joe suggested we ought to handle it much like Franklin Roosevelt handled the “crash of ‘29”. Go on television and explain it to the folks.
Wow, why didn’t someone else think of something like that to say? Could it be that there was no television to go on, and the president at the time just happened to be Herbert Hoover?
Was this asinine comment picked up by the press and did they ask Joe if he could possibly spell potato? You guessed it, no. Now if Palin had made such a ridiculous statement, why she’d have been laughed completely off the Republican ticket and dismissed with “what have we been trying to tell you” page one coverage from the New York Times and every other “Obama for President” news outlet. Why does this idiot get a pass from the press? Why do they never mention his brilliant plan to divide Iraq into three autonomous regions a few months back?
If this is what we’re supposed to accept as a “brilliant, masterful, experienced, world policy strategist,” kindly spare this reader.
George Earhart
Kelso
Something smells fishy
The article in the Sept. 26 Daily News about 531 fall tule chinook dying at Kalama Falls Hatchery disturbs me. Hatchery manager Aaron Roberts states that he is 99 percent sure that it was an act of vandalism.
I don’t for one second believe we have vandals running around up there. In reality, this problem could have been eliminated by a chain and padlock, and a float switch with an alarm. This is a huge loss and hopefully steps have been taken to insure it never happens again. Me, I’m betting on the other 1 percent — human error.
Mike Lowry
Kalama
Area needs fast food
I work in the industrial area on Talley Way. I would love to see a fast food restaurant get built somewhere close to my work. Dairy Queen gets a lot of my business right now and that of a lot of other workers, too.
I can’t get across town to McDonald’s or the new Taco Time in a half an hour, not when I have to shift and eat. If a fast food restaurant would get built, it would get a lot of business. I would love to see a Wendy’s get built on one of the vacant lots around my work. Does anyone else agree with me?
Shelly Merrell
Kelso
KHS band honored
After eight years of steady national decline resembling the Great Depression, I’m relieved to know that our local Republicans are concerned about the Kelso High School Band.
Great job, Kelso Hilander Band.
Joe Stewart
Kelso
One dreary workplace
The Hall of Justice is a dreary, unpleasant building filled with people who would rather not be there but are forced to by the circumstances of the criminal system. There may have been a time when the building was almost attractive; an unused fountain still exists in front. But the building, a concrete monolith, is cold in the winter, hot in the summer, suffered from chronic sewage leaks when the jail was upstairs and brings to mind the Soviet area as seen through dirty windows.
The architect at least tried to make the landscaping attractive by planting oaks to keep the setting summer sun from baking the western offices. A number have since been removed. And mature, lovely, flowering crab apple trees graced the division between the river parking lot and driveway in front.
Just recently all the crab-apple trees were cut down and hauled away. It seems that a certain politburo mentality still exists ... the same grim view of the world that found necessary cutting down the cottonwoods shielding the landfill, healthy trees at the lake, trees along Industrial Way. Two large trees in front of the Hall went away earlier this year to accommodate a couple of new parking spaces. Perhaps now we should clear the only remaining living plant facing the river (ivy) and in its place drop a few carloads of slag.
Duane C. Crandall
Longview
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