Letters to the editor, April 15, 2007

Friday, April 13, 2007 10:09 PM CDT

Chicago's rail lesson

The Chicago RTA uses a 1 percent sales tax to help fund the $2 billion operating budget for regional transportation. (Chicago has a 9 percent sales tax).

They've submitted a $10 billion 5-year capital plan, with an additional $500 million increase for operating cost to fund transportation improvements, and for a "circle" rail system that will connect Chicago's inner suburbs.

Who's in favor of this plan? Everybody from tax payers and businesses, to local politicians because they know that the economy depends on it. They also know that the alternative, building more roads, will be more expensive with very negligible traffic congestion relief.. Without strong public transportation, especially rail, the economy would come to a halt on the expressways.

Southeastern Wisconsin is having trouble with KRM which would use a car rental tax to fund the operating budget, and $250 million capital investment, most of which is federally funded. The only problem here is that it wasn't started 10 years ago.

Racine must have leaders, especially state representatives, who are bullish on Racine and understand the importance of regionalizing our economy and our transportation systems.

Chicago and it's suburbs have headquarters for 11 Fortune 500 companies and Southeastern Wisconsin has one.

E.D Jameson

Racine, WI

Cut the spending

When Congress adjourned on Dec. 9, the nation should have breathed a great sigh of relief. The old saw telling us that "no man's property is safe while the legislature is in session," comes to mind whenever the government officials decide to take a break.

One of the last moves of our leaders involved continuing some tax cuts. But spending also needs to be cut. The accumulated national debt now tops $8 trillion; the current fiscal year will have a red ink total close to $300 billion; the dollar's value is sinking badly versus the Euro and other currencies; and our nation's trade deficit continues to soar. Every economic indicator practically screams that the nation should cease excessive spending, cut back or cancel many government programs, and cease passing along huge indebtedness to future generations.

Meanwhile, foreign holders of U.S. debt such as Communist China have been given power to dictate U.S. policy.

Should China and these other countries decide to sell their U.S. bonds, a worldwide depression felt most intensely right here in the United States would result.

Fiscal sanity hasn't been practiced for decades.

And the Bush administration along with a compliant Congress shows no signs whatsoever of restoring fiscal responsibility.

Art Schaafsma

Milwaukee

Democrats' sorry record

U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of our president, whoever he may be. The president may fire them for any reason at all.

That includes not implementing the president's policy about criminal prosecutions, which includes being in the way of someone else whom the president wants to appoint for patronage reasons. That's just the way it is.

Democrats deride our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as being "incompetent." I think back to Janet Reno, the Democratic Attorney General under President Clinton, how she treated the women and children of the Branch Davidian at Waco, Texas, these women and children were not a security threat to our country and did not deserve to die. The young Cuban lad who defected from communist Cuba with his mother who died at sea, Attorney General Janet Reno sent him packing back to communist Cuba. How cruel is this lady? The president's wife, Hillary Clinton, fired all the travel agency personnel at the White House for patronage reasons. Did she have this authority?

Democrat representatives let Sandy Berger walk free after stealing and destroying top secret national security documents. William Jefferson, Democratic representative from Louisiana sits on the Homeland Security Committee while waiting for $100,000 in his freezer to thaw out and our Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) draws interest on the sale of property he sold in a complicated land swindle. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pays no price for having illegally obtained a copy of Maryland's Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Steele's credit report through an employee of his (dirty politics for sure).

After the 2006 election, Democrats had the power to turn our country in a new direction and they promised reform (that changed), now the appropriations committees are accepting pork barrel requests.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to establish a shadow presidency by going to Syria and not by President Bush's request. We have an excellent State Department with Condi Rice, the liberal Democrats have prostituted themselves to organized labor and they promise to do away with the secret votes for union membership.

They are not making any promises of programs. They are running on pure hate and venom.

Roy Radke,

4909 Charles St., Racine

Expand road through field

We read with disgust Mike Zelenski's "Stuart Road Flap" in the April 11 Opinions section.

We find his sarcastic quips cheap and barely clever. Zelenski implies we are selfish ingrates, looking to satisfy ourselves at great cost to the public. But would he take the time to even look at what we are proposing? To consider that completing Airline/Oakes might provide more good to the public than widening Stuart?

That Mount Pleasant could follow sensible transportation planning that spreads traffic out rather than concentrating it?

That we could correct an unfortunate situation created by bad planning in a way that helps many and harms few?

To Zelenski, it's not worth the time. Whatever the government says must be best for the public.

Stuart residents asked for it? What is he talking about? Saddle our neighbors with a new road?

The extension to Airline Road we're asking for would go through a farm field. What neighbors would that affect? To Zelenski, a single drive down Stuart Road is good enough to understand all the ins and outs of the issue. Stuart residents have invested hundreds of hours studying the issue to create a sensible proposal that helps everyone, including themselves. His drive down Stuart was what, three minutes?

In Zelenski's mind, as in Helain Andersen's ("No Tissues from Willow Road", March 18), unless the injustice to Stuart Road residents is worse than anywhere else in Racine County, they have no reason to complain. Never mind that they are being saddled with assessments for water main, curb and gutter that almost nobody wants, or that their property values will decrease 10% or more as traffic continues to be needlessly funneled down Stuart. As long as somebody else is less fortunate or was hurt the same way, they should just shut up.

We think that Zelenski, like many others, is upset by the very idea that we are speaking out for our rights rather than just rolling over. That we dare to differ with the government on how to achieve the public good. It is precisely his brand of half-witted thinking that enables governments at all levels to continue to erode our rights and increase our taxes while not being held accountable.

We say the Stuart Road question is a close enough call to debate it in public. Anyone who agrees with us should write a letter to the Village of Mount Pleasant and say so.

As for Zelenski: hopefully the next time individual preferences needlessly give way to the "common good", it will be at his expense, and we can watch him cheerfully take one for the team.

Thomas Loomis

144 Stuart Road, Mount Pleasant

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