Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/26688
6A – Daily News – Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Unions Editor: Management and the govern- Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 ment have been trying to bust up the Unions since before Samuel Gompers founded the AF of L. Everybody loves democracy until people get together and vote to form a Union. Let me explain what a Union contract is. It is an agreement between two parties that delin- eates the responsibilities of both parties. The boss can't fire you for no cause, and you agree to show up for work on time and do your job. Other things can be negotiated into the contract too. A lot of people and politi- cians are trying to blame the Unions for the financial mess we are in right now. Nothing made the school districts super- visors sign a contract giving away the wealth of the taxpay- ers. I know. People are going to yell that the teachers would go out on strike if they didn't get what they wanted. Really? When was the last teachers strike? Who cares if they go out on strike? Go down to the school, get your kids books and work with them at home if the teachers’ demands are so outra- geous. They'll come back to work when they get hungry. You don't solve the problem by busting the Union. They're only half the problem. You solve the problem by working the contract and negotiating! At some time in the retire- ment clause negotiations, some- body in accounting should have pointed out that in thirty years we would be paying three salaries for the work of one teacher; and the money would not be there. Fred Boest, Red Bluff Wage gap Editor: Science, technology, engineer- ing and math (STEM) education is not just for guys. In middle and hig h school, girls often outperform gu ys, in math and science but then so mething adverse happens. Their pa rents and school counselors fail to e ncourage girls to enroll in the more rigorous STEM college career fiel ds. Although more women than m en graduate from college, women t oday hold only 18 percent of engi- neering bachelor's degrees and 13. 4 percent of engineering jobs. That' s up from twenty years ago, but the number should be 50 percent. Toda y's starting salary for engineers ave rages $57,000. Women hold an adv antage in engineers pay because th ere are so few female candidates to meet government mandated equal- ity rules. As a Chief Engineer for four Fo rtune 500 companies from 1960 to 1995, I've hired about 300 engi- neers and only a handful of female engineers were available for the job openings. The dozen or so female engineers that I've worked with we re outstanding in their job perfor- mance. In Tehema County there ar e probably not a dozen female engi neers, hence it is difficult to find rol e models for future women engi- neers. School counselors and par- ents are being unfair to girls by not encouraging them to take all of the math and science courses avail- able in grade and high school and t hen enroll in the more rigorous ST EM career fields. The education of an engineer or scientist starts in the early primary grades. Women now are the majority of college grads in medicine, nurs- ing, biochemistry, law, physics, an d pharmacy. They should also be th e majority in science, technolo- gy, engineering and math. Joseph J. Neff, Corning Fair tax Editor: Recently I have been studying the benefits of replacing our cur- rent federal tax system with the Fair Tax Plan. I find all pluses and no minuses with this change and believe it would also work for our income tax system for State of California. 1. Imagine not filing federal and state income tax forms every April 15. 2. Imagine your take home pay going up even without receiving a pay increase. 3. Imagine income from self employment, estate, capital gains, interest and investments and any other ordinary income not being subject to taxes. 4. Imagine the cost of govern- ment being spread to every citi- zen, where now 53 percent of wage earners pay 100 percent of total costs. 5. Imagine all the huge sums of money taken to foreign banks to avoid taxes on gains could be brought back to invest and expand within our shores. 6. Imagine tax fraud can all but be eliminated. Policing tax fraud will be all but old news. 7. Business and corporate tax will cease, allowing businesses to expand, buy replacement equip- ment and hire more employees. 8. Imagine shutting down the IRS with millions of employees and replace with a small staff to monitor funds collected in con- sumption tax on sales by busi- nesses. 9. Imagine collection of rev- enue from illegal and legal buy- ing goods and services here. (Projections from this source alone are in excess of 60 billion annually.) 10. Imagine only deductions from employees pay as FDIC (Social Security) and retirement contributions. 11. Imagine larger pay checks giving greater buying power to every citizen and increase sales at every business. Your Turn 12. Imagine employers avoid- ing income tax and withholdings for employees, increasing working capital for further expansion and hiring. 13. Imagine April 15th being just one more day. A day to celebrate life. 14. Imagine saving time and money in record keeping and preparing tax forms. 15. Imagine taxpayers gaining control over how much tax they pay by how much they choose to buy instead of how much they earn. 16. Imagine how many new jobs will be gained when the demand for goods and services is increased by bigger pay checks for everyone. I understand questions will come up about the percentage the tax will be and how we help very low income families bear the Fair Tax cost. We are told the follow- ing example that a family of four with an annual household income below approximately $42,000.00 will be able to file for periodic rebate by signing an "Under Penalty of Perjury" form to get each rebate. The rebate is prorat- ed based upon income and total residing in the household. The percentage of Fair Tax is yet to be determined. It will have to be sufficient to both cover the current cost of government, as well as, start reduction of State and Federal debts. I really like the plan and encourage both agreement and rebuttals. Jim Monson, Proberta Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Democracy is the new black Commentary Congratulations from the Unit- ed States of America to all our free- dom-loving brothers and sisters in Egypt and Yemen and Jordan and Oman and Tunisia and Libya and Iran and Bahrain and Morocco and Algeria — and maybe, someday soon, Saudi Arabia — for standing up to your dictatorial overlords and clutching at the guano-covered branches of freedom. Jolly good. You’ve made majority rule fashion- able again. Democracy is now the new black. We are all totally psyched how you’ve dragged yourselves kicking and screaming from the Dark Ages into the middle 19th century. You may be excited to hear about some other upgrades we’ve made in areas such as in transportation, commu- nications and hygiene. It’s all there in your orientation packet. Watch some MTV. Ignore "Jersey Shore." No, they’re not real. We got to warn you, though, self-rule isn’t all a bed of roses. It has a thorny learning curve. Rubs tough on beginners. You might want to spend some time wading out towards the deep end wearing your feudal water wings before jumping straight into the parlia- mentary pool. The thing is, don’t expect the world to change overnight. Eng- land’s has been dancing with democratization since 1265 and they’re still curtseying to the queen. Usually what happens is you lose one tyrannical despot only to gain another. You could avoid a particu- lar mistake we made and find someone who can spell despot. Elections are tricky things. Make sure it’s The People deciding the outcome and not nine old folks wearing black robes. Here’s a hint: If anybody gets 95 percent of the vote, reboot. You might be sur- prised to find the people most like- ly to run for political office often turn out to be criminally insane. Maybe you should pass a law restricting that. Kind of wish we had. Rule of thumb: Anybody who can be elected shouldn’t be. Something else to keep in mind: Democracy for one means democ- racy for all. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it enterprise. All men are creat- ed equal. And women. None of this wife- walking-five- paces-behind her-husband- while-dressed-as-a-grieving- beekeeper stuff. Same with Sunnis and Shiites and Sasquatches. One person. One vote. Hey, we all put our robes on one leg at a time. Or two. Whatever. Start small. Too many choices can result in inac- tion. An example: Some- times you just want a pack- age of sunflower seeds. You don’t want the Low-Sodium Dill Pickle flavor. But Safe- way is all out of Original fla- vor because they allotted equal shelf space to the Low Sodium Dill Pickle flavor. Which nobody wants. They can have it, if they wanted. But they don’t. Well, same deal with liberty. So, there you are. Hope that clears that up. Will Durst Raging Moderate satirist All we’re trying to say is good luck with the whole democracy thing. Treat it like a new car, always dri- ving as if 100 eggs are hatching inside of it at all times. Because they are. Bring it in for a tune- up every 10,000 miles and don’t for- get to change the oil (shouldn’t be a prob- lem). Remember to downshift headed uphill, it tends to veer to the left on the straightaways, and try not to crack it up because who knows, maybe we here in America might want to give it another test drive ourselves someday. San Francisco-based political Will Durst writes sometimes. Like this.