Letters to the Editor: Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008

Published: November 29, 2008

Regarding "Meth mom wins early release” (news story, Nov. 20): I want to commend Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater and Judge Virgil Black for their decisions in this case. The legal system has proved once again that good things come to people who follow the rules and do something about their addiction.

Police officers can also help in this process. Now that Black and Prater have spoken, the police can follow their lead. Let’s give Theresa Lee Hernandez and others like her a chance to continue with the recovery process. Law enforcement officers in smaller communities can help even more. A simple, friendly greeting of encouragement with less persistent monitoring means much to a person who’s trying to recover from a black hole of no existence and loss of self-worth.

Giving a person in recovery a chance to return to society means a lot to them because it’s an uphill battle forever. Although drug users are breaking the law and must be prosecuted for possession, the worse criminals are the dealers who supply the drugs. These crafty, slick drug salesmen need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

As police officers, prosecutors and judges, let’s try to be compassionate with the drug victims and hard on the drug distributors.

Jerry Koester, Piedmont

Koester is chief of police in Piedmont.

Instead of throwing money to the banks and trying to persuade them to loan money to borrowers who can’t service the debts they already have, why not throw the money to consumers who account for 70 percent of gross domestic product? One way to do this quickly and easily would be to declare a one-time tax holiday for 99 percent of all individual taxpayers for 2008. Based upon the figures for 2006 (the latest available from the IRS), this would divert $600 billion from the U.S. Treasury to the pockets of more than 100 million individual taxpayers (or 200 million, if most file joint returns). Eighty percent of the $600 billion could be recouped by taxing the adjusted gross income of the top 1 percent of all individual taxpayers at 50 percent for 2008, which would produce $488 billion in new revenues.

This plan would have the added appeal of imposing a modest penalty on most of the pirates who created the current financial mess while posing as free-market capitalists. A few innocents in the top 1 percent might also be caught in the net. But to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden, it might be their patriotic duty to pay more taxes.

Harry C. Johnson, Yukon

The fix to the financial crisis is to enact the "fair tax” and repeal the income tax. This would do away with corporate and personal income taxes and all deductions, leaving more money in everyone’s pockets. This would stimulate the economy every month, not just one time with checks from the government. Economists such as Milton Friedman long ago told us stimulus packages don’t work.

The "fair tax” would bring $13 trillion that’s been sheltered overseas back into our economy, to be invested. Companies from around the world would flock to the U.S. to enjoy the tax-free business environment, fixing unemployment. Next, we could fix the energy problem by reversing every restriction Democrats have imposed, including increased fuel economy standards. We need to drill where the oil is and build refineries, nuclear plants and clean coal plants.

Let the market settle the problems of the Big Three automakers. The "fair tax” would help with this also.

Douglas C. Tate, Elk City

The "fair tax” is the name for a national retail sales tax proposed to replace federal income taxes.

I’m appalled at the number and frequency of traffic lights in this area. Left-turn arrows continue to be installed where they aren’t needed. In nearly all cases, you can see for blocks but you can’t turn, even if traffic is clear, until that left-turn arrow comes on. This unnecessarily delays traffic from moving. In the very few areas where a simple green light controls through traffic and turning traffic, traffic flows well with a minimum of interruption.

Downtown, some one-way streets have six lights in one direction! Many areas have more than one light per lane. This has nothing to do with safety. Edmond and Norman are the only cities trying to update intersections, but they still aren’t putting in right-turn-only lanes. The benefits certainly outweigh the expense.

Someone must have a brother-in-law at the factory where these lights are made. What a waste of money and gas!

Alvin Cavaco, Oklahoma City

Compare the number of Americans killed in Iraq to date (4,000 plus) to the over 80,000 casualties in the Battle of the Bulge, from which many of my buddies in the 17th Airborne Division never came home in World War II. Yet we are without question facing a more dangerous and formidable adversary in Islam than we ever faced in World War II. We’d better wake up and realize that gaining a foothold in Iraq is absolutely necessary for any chance of success in the Middle East.

And if Islam is peaceful, why doesn’t even one Muslim country allow freedom of religion and speech? If Islam is peaceful, who is imparting this awful violence to hundreds of Islamic groups throughout the world that kill innocent people in the name of Allah? The world has more than ample proof from the history of Islamic violence that terrorists don’t believe that democracy and Islam can co-exist.

Paul Wilson, Oklahoma City

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