Tribune Forum Letter

By Brian Slade

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

This past year I kept reading about the report that two-thirds of Utah third-graders don’t read at grade level, and how this benchmark is critical because through third grade, students learn to read. After that, they read to learn. If we fail them by the third grade, we’ve failed them for the rest of their lives.

The noise about this was so loud, tragic and embarrassing that I thought surely the 2011 Legislature would address this pivotal problem upon which turns so much else, from classroom cohesion to dropout rates to crime and a vibrant Utah workforce.

This is a problem that is solvable: by not (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter by Elaine Ball

First published Jan 29 2011 01:01AM

The front-page article “Without marriage, same-sex parents unable to adopt” (Tribune, Jan. 24) was both heartwarming and heart-wrenching.

I am a lesbian in a committed relationship of two-plus years. Like the family in the article, my partner and I hope to raise our children in Utah because here we have supportive and loving friends and extended family members.

I hope that people recognize that their doctrinal belief that two people of the same sex should not have the right to marry (more…)

Tribune Public Forum letter by Mike Coronella, Moab

Re “Utah not a colony of Washington, D.C., Herbert says ” (Tribune, Jan. 27):

Gov. Gary Herbert is crying (again) about our federal government. Does he have a clue what he’s talking about? Consider this from Article I of the Utah State Constitution: “The State of Utah is an inseparable part of the Federal Union and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.”

How is it that extreme Utah partisans believe such a radically different interpretation of our founding Constitution? Herbert seems (more…)

(Letter published in the Tribune Public Forum submitted by Paul and Teri Jewell of Salt Lake City.)

Great letter from the Jewell’s. Thanks Paul and Teri.

Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee and now state Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, all want a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We have a better idea: Propose an actual balanced federal budget right now!

The proposed 2011 federal budget is $3.8 trillion. That includes $2.4 trillion for Social Security, Medicare, interest payments and other mandatory expenses; $0.9 trillion for defense; and $0.5 trillion for all other discretionary spending (everything from farm subsidies to national parks). The deficit is projected to be $1.3 trillion.

A freeze on discretionary spending and elimination of earmarks (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter

By Larry LaCroix, Lehi

Published: January 2, 2011 12:38AM

Every time I read a letter like Kerry Myers’ “Voluntary tax increase” (Forum, Dec. 25), which suggests that those who want higher taxes should simply send their checks to the Internal Revenue Service because “what we already pay is adequate (or too high), and we have no desire to pay more,” I want to scream!

We are at war! People are being killed, and people are dying in the name of the United States of America. And for the first time, we had a president (George W. Bush) who convinced the country that we could fight two wars (more…)

(Tribune Forum Letter)

By Richard Burt

Published: December 31, 2010 11:11PM

Our extreme national debt that commenced under President Ronald Reagan has progressively gotten worse with each successive tax cut.

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts increased the debt by $4.1 trillion, and their continuation adds another $4.1 trillion over the next 10 years.

The public has been deceived into believing (more…)

Published: January 10, 2011 12:20AM

A recent University of Maryland study confirms that those who watch Fox News daily are significantly more likely than those who never watch it to believe that:

• Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses. (It has created millions of jobs.)

• Most economists estimate that the health care bill will worsen the deficit. (Most estimate it will reduce the deficit.)

• The economy is getting worse. (It is improving.)

• Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring. (Scientists are at near consensus that it is.)

• The stimulus did not include tax cuts. (Forty percent (more…)

I take my hat off to Warren Buffet when he said recently, “… people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.” When the top 5 percent of Americans possess approximately 72 percent of America’s wealth but pay only 59 percent of all federal income tax, something is out of balance.

Fred Ash

Sandy

Buffet also pointed out that his secretary paid a higher percentage of her income for taxes than he did.

Published: November 14, 2010 03:55PM

I just finished Ron Chernow’s acclaimed Washington: A Life. I was struck how George Washington was consistently for a strong national government to solve national problems.

Washington was for a national debt when needed, and he definitely believed in national intervention to solve economic problems.

He had no sympathy for those who wanted to put states’ rights before the federal government.

Those who claim that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend to create a strong, pre-eminent federal government (more…)

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 17, 2010 01:01AM

You didn’t get mad:

• when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a president;

• when Vice President Dick Cheney let energy companies dictate energy policy;

• when a CIA operative got outed;

• when we illegally invaded a country that (more…)

Tribune Forum

Published: November 13, 2010 01:01AM

Re “Same-sex attractions can change, 44% say” (Tribune, Nov. 5):

So 55 percent of Mormons persist in believing that gays can change (but only 20 percent of non-LDS). No surprise there, considering Mormons’ proclivity for believing myths over facts.

From a people among whom many don’t believe in evolution, what do you expect? If Mormons lived in Galileo’s day, they would be one of the last people to agree that Jupiter has moons and the Earth revolves around the sun.

Science: the other form of revelation.

Mike Waters

Salt Lake City

Letter to The Deseret News and to Watts Cookin’ Blog

by Gary Watts, M.D., Provo, Utah

Most knowledgeable Mormons and ecclesiastical leaders know that homosexuality is experienced honestly and involuntarily and is not amenable to significant change.   I’m confident they were uncomfortable with Elder Boyd K. Packer’s most recent conference talk.  It is disappointing, however, to see them remain silent.

I’m reminded of Elie Weisel’s quote during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

I look forward to the day when LDS church leaders will reach out to our gay children, friends and neighbors, and figure out a way to enfranchise, rather than disenfranchise them.

Gary Watts

801 374-1447

Published Sep 25, 2010 12:16AM
Letter Published in Tribune Forum

by Boyer Jarvis

Many retired people in the United States of America depend upon Social Security as their major, or only, source of income. Since the program was established in the 1930s, both employees and employers have paid equally into the Social Security Trust Fund, from which, after retiring, the former employees are paid monthly benefits.

In 1983, Congress raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 and cut benefits for the average retiree by 13 percent. That action was intended to avoid a future deficit in the Social Security fund. As the baby-boomer generation retires, Congress (more…)

Two letters caught my eye in the Sept. 21 Public Forum. Larry Henkels’ “Bagley’s wasted talent” chides Pat Bagley for being anti-Republican, claiming the Democratic-controlled Congress was responsible for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Does Henkels forget that the Republican-controlled Congress gave us the $600 billion TARP, unpaid-for drug bill that benefited big pharmaceutical companies and the $1.4 trillion tax breaks that primarily benefited the very wealthy, all while wasting more than $1 trillion on an unnecessary war in Iraq.

Does he forget that it was President George W. Bush who requested all of these things (including TARP) and signed them into law? There is much to blame Congress for (Republican and Democrat); TARP is not one of them.

Barbara Smith’s “Burning books and flags” suggests Americans should base our behavior on how other countries act: “Let’s say to the Islamic world: ‘You don’t burn our flag, and we won’t burn your book!’” How infantile. It’s as inane as Newt Gingrich’s “There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.” As if America’s religious freedoms are predicated on how another country acts and not on our own Constitution.

Larry LaCroix

Lehi

September 25, 2010 12:07AM

Thank you for the link to the text of LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks’ “Fundamentals of Our Constitutions” (http://bit.ly/bGaK7h). His opening comments apply to many of today’s controversies, including the debates over health care and federal funding of public education:

“Some of the things said … in recent public discourse cause me to urge that we be more careful in the way we throw around the idea that something is unconstitutional. A constitution should not be used as a weapon to end debate. A public policy or a proposed law that is unwise is not necessarily unconstitutional. Even if it is a stupid proposal, it is not necessarily unconstitutional. A constitution gives the people and their elected leaders the opportunity to make many decisions that are unwise or even reckless. When that happens … we should engage in vigorous public debate about it. But we should not use up a constitution by attempting to strike down every ill-conceived act of government. … A constitution is the ultimate weapon, and we preserve that weapon best by using it sparingly and carefully. … In this way, a constitution can be used to stimulate discussion and to seek unity.”

Mick Travis

Park City

In his op-ed, “Utah can learn from Florida’s progress in education” (Opinion, Sept 19), Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives David Clark speaks volumes about how poor Utah education really can be. “With our large families and extensive federal lands, Utah will never be able to match the spending of other states on public education” is apparently considered by Clark to be a probative comment.

But let’s look closer. After subtracting the 70 percent of the Utah land held in common with our fellow American citizens, Utah still has more 26,000 square miles of land for our 3 million residents to own and occupy.

Florida, on the other hand, has 18 million people sharing 64,000 square miles — it is twice as crowded as we are (or, in the terms Clark offers, it has only half as much opportunity for its citizens). And little New Jersey has only 7,000 square miles to support its 8 million citizens, while creating a far higher standard of living than Utah does.

So the primary question is: Is Clark educationally deficient or only intellectually challenged? And, secondarily: Will Utah Republicans ever stop whining about not getting a big enough piece of the federal pie?

Darrell Prows

Murray

This Forum letter to The Salt Lake Tribune by Pat Shea is referring to the speech given by Dallin Oaks on the constitution and the resultant coverage by the Tribune on Sept. 18, 2010.

Pavlovian headline | The Salt Lake Tribune

Pavlovian headline September 23, 2010 12:04AM

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That folk wisdom came to mind when I read Lee Davidson’s report on LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks’ talk on the Constitution (“LDS apostle: Only states should define marriage,” Tribune, Sept. 18). Oaks was the nail; The Tribune was the hammer.

First, it is great to read Lee in The Tribune. He is a good reporter in the tradition of great newspaper reporting. That having been said, Lee, his editors and headline writers chose to focus on three paragraphs of Oaks’ talk about states’ rights and who should define marriage. What was not mentioned were his four principles with which to analyze the Constitution: the sovereignty of the people, the division of powers between states and the federal government, the Bill of Rights and (more…)

At the end of his address on the Constitution, LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks commended a recent LDS Church statement on America’s overcharged political dialogue: “[T]he Church views with concern the politics of fear and rhetorical extremism that renders civil discussion impossible. … [O]ur democratic system [should] facilitate kinder and more reasoned exchanges among fellow Americans than we are now seeing.” (See http://bit.ly/bGaK7h.)

I commend the church’s statement to Oaks, not the passages on being civil, which he was, but the words “discussion” and “reasoned exchanges.” Instead of just giving a one-time, one-sided pronouncement on the Constitution that raises many more questions (more…)

Jim Stark doubts that the Utah Legislature would ever vote to create a new permanent Democratic member of Congress by giving Washington, D.C., a seat in the House of Representatives (“Fair play? Huh!” Forum, April 28). Fetch, Utah’s Republican leaders won’t even give Democrats in Salt Lake City a seat in Congress! How dumb is it to link one house in the Avenues on N Street with neighborhoods in Logan and the house directly across the street with neighborhoods in St. George? But House Speaker Dave Clark proposes to perpetuate that undemocratic idiocy just to keep Salt Lakers from electing a Democrat (“Clark: Split county 4 ways,” Tribune , April 19).

For a century, the United States has advocated for the self-determination of peoples — the right for people to determine how they will be governed — but that scoundrel Clark won’t even let the people of Salt Lake pick their own representative. That’s democracy? That’s trust in the people? That’s darn political skullduggery! If Clark were in the South in the 1950s, he’d defend the poll tax as a way to keep blacks from voting. I get that Clark doesn’t like Democrats. I don’t get how he doesn’t like fair democracy.

Andrew Beckett

Snyderville

Rep. Jim Matheson’s self-justifying rationale for voting against health care reform fails before this question: What would have happened had his view prevailed? (“Health reform needs more work,” Opinion, April 4.) There is no evidence that a better bill could have emerged at any time in the next several years. Republicans have stood silent for decades in face of the need for health care reform. They did nothing but obscure and obstruct during the entire past year. Democrats were exhausted by this fight. Had they lost, they would have had neither the energy nor the influence for another try.

Hence, Matheson’s vote essentially said that he preferred to settle for nothing — to return to the status quo for an indeterminate time, each year adding to the disintegration of our health care system and to the burden on American families. He preferred guaranteed increases in insurance costs and family misery to the likelihood that this bill will start us in a more positive direction. No bill of this size and complexity could be perfect, but this one can be adjusted and improved with experience, and it will be far less costly than the do-nothing alternative Matheson evidently preferred.

Douglas Johnstone

Sandy