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 promoting students who don’t read at grade level, by paying for tutors or by making students do summer school.

If an epidemic of a life-damaging disease affected two-thirds of our children, there would be a massive, compulsory public health program to stop it. But nothing from our Legislature to stop this reading disease.

We just tread water with more of the same. Since this problem can be solved now, it should be solved now. We can’t wait 10 years and fail hundreds of thousands more children.

Brian Slade

Salt Lake City

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 one another prevents families like ours from adopting children who need stable, loving homes such as ours.

We are 26 and 30 years of age. We plan to be together for the entirety of our lives. We can’t adopt, yet how is it that two people of the opposite sex who only just met can casually jaunt down to Vegas, be married by Elvis and have the legal right of adoption in this great, moral state of Utah?

Elaine Ball

Salt Lake City

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 to think he knows better than 235 years of constitutional interpretation. Does he even know about the Civil War, which settled federal primacy?

Article III of the Utah Constitution says: “The people inhabiting this State do affirm and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries hereof.” These liars whine about a “land grab going on in our state,” when the federal government — we, the people — own the land that they are literally trying to steal from the public. If these clowns can’t even follow our own state Constitution, they shouldn’t be in the statehouse.

Mike Coronella

Moab

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 are mere drops in the federal budget bucket. Since tax increases are complete anathema to the Lees and Hatches of Congress, the public deserves to hear their specifics on the 34 percent cut in federal spending needed to balance the budget under the amendment they hold so dear.

This posturing is political cowardice at its worst. We can only view the call of Wimmer, Hatch and Lee for a balanced budget amendment for what it is: a fig leaf to hide behind to convince the public they are fiscally prudent while proposing nothing substantive to solve the problem.

Paul and Teri Jewell

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 and spend more than $1 trillion while giving everyone a tax break. How absurd! The public does not care about the wars because they have been asked to sacrifice nothing. They are detached, busy complaining about how they’ve been taxed enough already. Give me a break!

Want to have a war? Pay for it! Raise everyone’s taxes. Have all Americans shoulder the burden! Pass a law that all wars must be financed by increased taxes, specifically called a war tax. Include in the war’s financing the full, lifetime benefits for veterans. Then see how quickly we give up fighting unnecessary wars of choice!

Larry LaCroix

Lehi

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 that wonderful things always happen when taxes are cut. Wonderful things do indeed happen for big business and especially Wall Street. Additionally, there is the temporary illusion of prosperity, with its attendant financial busts. However, the debt never lessens; it grows.

History will not be kind to those who promote tax cuts as the answer to our financial ills. George H.W. Bush was correct when he criticized Reagan’s tax-cutting philosophy as “voodoo economics.”

To eliminate the annual deficit, spending cuts must be made, but we also need taxes. As a percent of the total economy, U.S. taxes are lower now than in the 1950s. Out of the top 30 economies, the United States is 28th in taxes paid by its citizens.

If we are ever to stabilize our economy, there must be spending cuts and tax increases. I doubt either will be done to the extent necessary.

Richard Burt

Sandy

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 of it was in tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses.)

• Their own income taxes have gone up. (They have gone down.)

• The auto bailout only occurred under President Barack Obama. (The program was initiated by President George W. Bush.)

• Most Republican congressmen opposed TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. (Republicans overwhelmingly voted for it.)

• It is not clear that Obama was born in the United States. (His birth certificate has been authenticated by experts.)

Fox News intentionally misinforms. It can better advance its far-right agenda when its viewers are ignorant.

Jim Sargent

Salt Lake City

Fred Ash

Sandy

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

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 conveniently ignore the father of our country, who only led the Constitutional Convention and ran for president to create a strong national government.

Given Washington’s deference to elected legislatures as general and as president, amazingly, his opponents, those who championed states’ rights — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, whose writings gave justification to the South in the Civil War — labeled Washington as a “monarchist.” Incredible.

You can’t read Chernow’s book without seeing contemporary parallels. Only today those who champion a national government solving national problems like health care, climate change and regulation of Wall Street aren’t called monarchists, they’re smeared as socialists, anti-Constitution and worse.

But just as before, it’s the anti-government name-callers who are leading the nation down a path of destruction.

Billy C. Hanson

Park City

© 2010 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 posed no threat to us;

• when we spent more than $800 billion on said illegal war;

• when we tortured people;

• when the government illegally wiretapped Americans;

• when Bush rang up nearly $5 trillion in debt;

• when we gave the filthy rich half a trillion dollars in tax breaks;

• when we had the worst eight years of job creation in decades;

• when 200,000 Americans died because they had no health insurance; or

• when poor oversight caused Americans to lose $12 trillion in investments, retirement and home values.

You finally got mad as hell when a black president decided that Americans deserve the right to see a doctor.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, millions of job losses, stealing tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 were all OK, but helping fellow Americans to stay healthy … oh, hell no!

Sharon Davis

Salt Lake City

© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune

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

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

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 again faces how to keep Social Security from falling into the red around 2035.

Some propose protecting Social Security by raising the retirement age to 68 or 69 or 70, and by making even deeper cuts in benefits. There is a better, and fairer, way to ensure a solvent Social Security fund for years. Simply remove the existing $106,800 ceiling on earned income that pays the Social Security tax, and collect the tax on all earned income. The additional flow of money into the trust fund will ensure the fund’s ability to pay benefits way beyond 2035.

Boyer Jarvis

Salt Lake City

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

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

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 the separation of powers among the branches of government.

One can disagree with parts of what Oaks said, but most important, Oaks’ Constitution credo was presented in a quiet, thoughtful manner, something much needed today. We don’t need Pavlovian headlines that strike at preconditioned responses. We do need informed civil dialogue about how we govern ourselves. Oaks’ talk is a thoughtful introduction to such a civil dialogue.

Patrick Shea

Salt Lake City

Pat Shea is a non-Mormon Democrat and is always kind, generous, and respectful of others. He personally gathers people of differing views together in casual conversational settings where civil dialogue is encouraged by actually engaging in it. We should all emulate his efforts.

However, referring to the Oaks speech as the beginning of civil dialogue, and the Tribune coverage of it as somehow uncivil is a rather benign situation to use as an example of the problem of civility.

Uncivil dialogue is not taking place on Temple Square, nor at the Tribune—it is mostly taking place on talk radio and Fox News. The Mormon Church has encouraged it by broadcasting Sean Hannity three hours a day, six days a week on KSL for years and years. The church gave more air time to his partisan, vitriolic, condemnation of others than to the message of its own leaders. To its much belated credit, it has finally seen the toll that it has taken and has cancelled the program, and surely whatever takes Hannity’s place will be an improvement on civil dialogue.

Also, Elder Oaks was not initiating public dialogue. Oaks was giving a lecture. A laying down of the law, something for his legions to hang their hat on. His speech was not the beginning of dialogue, but the end. Once the leaders of the church have spoken the discussion ends.

Also, the Tribune did its job very well in covering the Oaks speech. It got to the crux of the speech and reported it just as good journalists should do and the headline was appropriate as well. There was nothing uncivil, unfair, or inaccurate about the reporting or the headline.

Shea, a respected lawyer himself, was fascinated with Oaks’ explanation of the four parts of the constitution and felt that was the main part of the speech and that the Tribune missed it. However, the thrust and apparent purpose of Oaks’ speech was to support states rights in determining same-sex marriage laws, just exactly what the Tribune reported.

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 than it answers, and then declining additional comment, as Mormon leaders do, Oaks should engage in actual discussions and reasoned exchanges with similarly civil and informed individuals. Now, that would be enlightening and constructive.

As it is, Oaks’ highly selective application of the Constitution to favor his church’s positions, while ignoring applications of it for others’, may be delivered politely, but it is ultimately insulting to intelligent people trying to sort through issues, and it ends up being another tool used in the polarization he laments. Without true discussion, Oaks adds more heat than light.

Victor Boyd

Salt Lake City

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

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