Observer Forum: Letters to the editor 01.17.16
Show courage, raise the N.C. gas tax
In view of the critical need for road and bridge construction and maintenance and limited state budgets, I find it frustrating that N.C. legislators haven’t shown the courage to consider raising gasoline taxes.
The cost of gasoline is lower than in recent memory, and the “pain at the pump” would be less severe than in the days of $4 a gallon.
Prices will of course go up again, but our crumbling infrastructure can’t wait forever for leadership from Raleigh.
Higher taxes are never popular, but neither are potholes and dangerous 60-year-old bridges.
Who will step up?
Don Justice, Charlotte
Who’s to blame? Dig deep on toll contract
In response to “City Council votes to back I-77 toll lanes” (Jan. 12) and related articles:
With the I-77 toll contract having a penalty of $100 million by one estimate and $300 million by another, isn’t anyone looking into the contract?
How can this even happen? This is a state contract that needs examination as to how the penalty started, what changes were made, and by whom.
Follow the money!
Ed Garland, Charlotte
Boost N.C. tax base to attract teachers
In response to “CEOs get packages. How about teachers? (Jan. 15 Editorial):
CMS Superintendent Ann Clark is right to attempt finding housing, health care, etc. assistance to aid teacher recruitment.
However, like many other community-based assistance ideas her plans benefit just a few winners.
What about a plan where everyone pays a little and all public employees – teachers, firefighters, law-enforcement and others – get the wages and benefits they so richly deserve?
Oh wait, North Carolina used to have that. It was called reasonable taxes.
Mary Englebert, Statesville
Expand Medicaid like Louisiana did
What a difference an election can make!
Just ask the 300,000 folks in Louisiana who’ll now be eligible for Medicaid coverage under Obamacare since they had the good sense to elect a Democrat as their new governor.
Since North Carolina’s governor, a Republican, continues to make incoherent excuses for not expanding Medicaid, some 500,000 North Carolinians go without health care coverage. And it will get worse as rural hospitals close shop due to their inability to access Medicaid funding.
Let’s hope those half-million N.C. residents are registered to vote and help to send our heartless governor packing come November.
Chris Porier, Charlotte
Obama wrong about state of the union
In response to Kevin Siers’ State of the Union cartoon (Jan. 14 Opinion):
Unfortunately it has become clear that President Obama lives in a different country than the rest of us.
In his State of the Union address he tries to convince us that everything is just fine, manipulating facts when we know he is mistaken.
Editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers depicted his address and administration correctly, with the president singing how he did it his way regardless of the consequences.
Craig Reutlinger, Charlotte
No good will come of hatred Trump spews
In response to “Muslim woman takes stand against nativism” (Jan. 14 Opinion):
Thank you, Leonard Pitts, for writing what many of us have been thinking about Donald Trump!
I am a conservative senior, old enough to remember the stories of 1936 Germany; young enough to have tried to pick up the pieces after the 1960 race riots.
Hatred like Trump spews will never make this country great again. It will just divide us further.
We did not become a great country by hatred of people who were different, or by mocking people.
We have never elected a president because he acted like the class bully. Let’s not start now.
Ken Randall, Matthews
The up-side of our political discord
Great GOP debate last week. This is what I love about politics. We argue, we disagree, but we don’t shoot each other.
The founding fathers set it up this way. Our republic is a never-ending argument.
For those who hate politics there is an alternative. Many leaders around the world torture and kill those who oppose them.
Long live American politics and the nonlethal arguing that goes with it.
Tom Daoust, Concord
This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 12:45 PM with the headline "Observer Forum: Letters to the editor 01.17.16."