Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/284793
Editor: It looks like the Red Bluff city council has decided to place a measure on the upcoming bal - lot that would raise local sales tax 0.25 cents. The need being to enhance law enforcement. It would seem that law enforce - ment is the proverbial squeaky wheel. I would like to know how many squeaky wheels it will take to repair, and in some in - stances re-construct the streets of Red Bluff? A 0.25 cent sales tax sure could help, but priori- ties are priorities. I suggest the city council re- move themselves from their ostrich-like attitude and look around to see what the city needs. I am sure a ride down South Main Street or Oak and Washington streets between the police station and the court house, the potato patch, might bump their eyes open — or not? The neglect of the streets in Red Bluff should be on the council's agenda until they are all in good repair. I read in the Daily News, Walmart corporation plans to contribute funding for road repair and constriction be - tween South Main and Jackson streets. All well and good for the area where the new Super Center is planned. What about Madison, Hickory or Walnut streets from Jackson Street to Wilder Road? I could go on, but most of us are aware of the sad conditions of our streets. So council if you're going to reach into the pockets of lo - cal businesses, a better pur- pose might be on your agenda or maybe we can post a sign on either end of town, simply stat- ing, "Welcome to Red Bluff — rough roads ahead." Joseph Ostrowski, Red Bluff State of Jefferson town hall Editor: Are you confused about the State of Jefferson movement? If so, you are not alone. One ques - tion that I hear a lot is "We will lose the money from the state, so how will we fund our pro- grams." Well, let's look at this one step further. We also will get to keep much of the money that is collected in the vari - ous counties, and we can decide how to spend it, instead of lib- eral politicians from the large metropolitan areas. You are invited to attend a town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at the Red Bluff Elks Lodge at the end of Gilmore Road, to hear speak - ers and get information. The main speaker will be Mark Baird, a rancher from Siskiyou County, who has been speak - ing throughout Northern Cal- ifornia counties to educate the public about the State of Jeffer- son movement. He has been se- verely affected by Sacramen- to's and southern California's control of our north state water, and is helping to do something about it. You have an opportunity to hear about what separating from California means to the north state, and how it affects us. With Measure A on the June 3 ballot, this may help you de - cide how to vote. The meeting is free to the public, so this is your chance to become informed. John Ward, Red Bluff Abuse of power Editor: We've all experienced abuse of power. People holding po- sitions of power can make or break a business or enterprise if they so choose. Maybe they want a bribe, maybe they want to flex their muscles, maybe they want to make you go away. Sadly they get away with it be - cause who can you go to for help except hire a lawyer which is usually too costly for a start- up business. I know of several people who have had problems, they weren't told of all that was re - quired in the beginning, just piece-meal one obstacle at a time. After months of trying to deal with all the rules and regulations, tempers get short and the problems really begin. The people in power are there to handle the job, not make it harder than it should be on someone trying to start a busi - ness. Dealing with Fish and Wild- life and BLM is another prob- lem. It takes an act of God to cut a tree down, but if you get permission, and are told what you might expect in the sale, by the time it goes through many hands, you're lucky to get 10 percent of what you were quoted. Where do you go? You know you're being cheated, but where do you go? Why is everything so convoluted? Why does some - body miles away have any say in this matter? They're your trees, you have permission to thin them legally, how does this go so wrong? Then landlord and tenant sit - uations. A tenant rents a place, cuts timber down and sells it with no permission from any- one, quits paying rent, you evict him, he sues for money he says he put into this place, gets a lawyer for free because he has no money and usually the land - lord loses. The landlord loses because they have to hire a law- yer to defend themselves from this parasite. These deadbeats know how to work the system. How did we get here? This began eons ago and isn't get - ting any better. I was reading today in the paper about all the prisoners on death row. These are vicious criminals who have killed for certain, they have to wait for four to five years for the first appeal and then there's appeal after appeal, one man has been on death row for 30 years. I've heard they can have 13 appeals. Why? Many say we need more pris - ons. I don't think so. We need harsher punishments, make prisoners earn their keep, and when a person commits a hei - nous crime, for certain, no doubt about it, carry out what- ever sentence they are given sooner, not later. We can't continue to ware- house these people, one day they'll out-number us. No one has any right to harm anybody else. Our justice system has gotten far too lenient, it just grows and grows. Bernice Cressy, Cottonwood Letters to the editor Law enforcement is squeaky wheel Cartoonist's take Caption WASHINGTON » Igor Stravinsky, the Russian composer, said of Poland, perilously positioned be - tween Russia and Ger- many: "If you pitch your tent in the middle of Fifth Avenue, it is quite likely you will be run over by a bus." Poland has been run over hard and often; indeed, between 1795 and 1918 it disappeared from the map of Europe. Geography need not be destiny, but it matters, as Ukraine is be - ing reminded. During its hazard- ous path to the present, all or bits of it have been parts of Poland, the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Ottoman empire, the Russian empire, the Soviet Union and now another Russian empire. Czar - ist Russia, which Lenin called "the prison of the peoples," is re- emerging and has in Vladimir Pu- tin an ambitious warden. In last week's Kremlin address, he said, "Do not believe those who want you to fear Russia, shout - ing that other regions will fol- low Crimea. We do not want to divide Ukraine; we do not need that." The word "need" is not re- assuring. It suggests that Russia's needs are self-legitimizing, and recalls the definition of a barbar- ian as someone who thinks his ap- petites are their own justification. Speaking of which: Six months after Germany's absorption of Austria, which was quickly rati - fied by a plebiscite, Adolf Hitler, on Sept. 26, 1938, spoke about the Sudeten region of Czecho- slovakia, home of many ethnic and linguistic Germans. Speak- ing three days before the Munich Conference began, he said: "This is the last territorial de- mand I have to make in Europe." On March 15, 1939, six months after Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland agreed to at Munich, Hitler swal - lowed the rest of Czecho- slovakia. Then his attention turned to "protecting" the German- speaking population in Poland. On Sept. 1, 1939, Germany in - vaded Poland on the pretext of responding to a Polish provoca- tion. On the night of Aug. 31, a German prisoner was dressed in a Polish uniform, killed and dis- played as a casualty of a Polish attack on a German radio sta- tion. Putin, whose lamented So- viet Union was then Hitler's ally, knows Hitler's tactics. If Putin had a sense of humor he would justify as "R2P" his policy of bringing home to the safety of mother Russia many of the Rus - sians residing in contiguous countries. R2P — "responsibil- ity to protect" — was the moral principle the Obama administra- tion invoked to justify involve- ment in the seven-month as- sault on Moammar Gaddafi, who posed no threat to us but suppos- edly did to Libyans. On Sept. 26, 1938, Hitler said "10 million Germans" lived "in two large contiguous regions" outside the Reich, and that "if I were simply to renounce 10 million ... I would then have no moral right to be fuehrer of the German people." Putin, whose Russia had about 142 million peo - ple before he added the 2 million in Crimea, must envelop many more if he is to match the 200 million the last czar, Nicholas II, ruled 100 years ago. Can NATO help restrain Pu- tin? After NATO was created in 1949, its first secretary general, Lord Ismay, said its purpose was to protect Europe by keep - ing "the Russians out, the Amer- icans in and the Germans down." The task of keeping Russia out of its neighbors is being compli- cated by something that would have improved the last century — German passivity. Angela Merkel may think that bring - ing Barack Obama to a confron- tation with Putin is like bringing a knife — a butter knife — to a gun fight. In a recent New Yorker in - terview, Obama praised him- self for being "comfortable with complexity" and unraveled the Middle East's complications: "It would be profoundly in the in - terest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren't intent on killing each other." Obama evidently harbors the surreal hope that Putin will continue to help regard - ing Syria and Iran. Continue? Putin's client in Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, is winning his civil war. And regarding at - tempts to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program, Putin's help- fulness, if not fictitious, has been ineffective. Obama has eschewed some- thing no one has contem- plated, "a military excursion in Ukraine." The American Heri- tage Dictionary defines "excur- sion" as "a usually short journey made for pleasure." Commentary When geography matters Sounding off a look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. This can't be good.... Stephanie Noyes: Comment on suspicious package le at tehama County Court House Don't trust the Shasta county bomb squad, they'll screw it up and then burn down our court house! Jo Larsen: Facebook comment on suspicious envelope found at tehama County Court House Greg Stevens, publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EdITOrIAL BOArd How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151 ext. 112 Mail to: p.o. Box 220, 545 Diamond ave., Red Bluff, Ca 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FaCEbook.CoM/ rbDaiLyNEwS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @rEDbLuFFNEwS George Will Of all the manifestations of Washington dysfunction, none is more absurd than the annual "doc fix." The origins of the prob - lem lie in a 1997 attempt by Con- gress to rein in Medicare physi- cian reimbursements. Lawmak- ers devised a "sustainable growth rate" that was supposed to link payments to statistical indicators of doctors' costs and workload. Alas, the growth rate perversely encouraged excessive tests and procedures; when it actually be - gan to reduce physicians' pay rates significantly in 2003, med- ical lobbies got it temporarily re- pealed in what turned out to be the first of 16 doc fixes. The cu- mulative cost of these fixes now exceeds $150 billion, and the most recent one expires March 31. The Medicare Payment Advi - sory Commission has proposed any number of ways to reform the payment system, but Con- gress has balked at a permanent doc fix because doing away with the current rules, however dis- credited, would force lawmak- ers to acknowledge a huge hole in the federal budget. Filling it would require either taxes or spending cuts; most past short- term "doc fixes" have been paid for with offsetting health-care trims. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers again, factoring in the recent slowing of growth in health- care costs, and determined that the tab might be about $140 bil - lion over 10 years, not $300 bil- lion, as previously thought. That encouraged both the House and Senate, Democrats and Repub- licans, to seek a permanent so- lution while it was, in effect, "on sale." Alas, even when a permanent doc fix could be had for cheap, it turns out that Congress can't, or won't, agree on a plausible way to pay for it. To be sure, it makes a kind of sense, in Wash - ington terms, to stop pretend- ing that you were ever going to cut doctors' fees and pay for that by "saving" money that you were never really going to spend. Still, past doc-fix pay-fors were mostly real — to the tune of $140 bil - lion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — and derived from health-care programs. Now is not the time to break that fiscally sound precedent, not even to get a permanent doc fix. Better to pass another short- term fix and keep working on a genuine way to pay for a perma - nent one. — Washington Post Other views Fixing the Medicare reimbursement rates OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, March 27, 2014 » MoRE at FaCEbook.CoM/rbDaiLyNEwS anD TwiTTEr.CoM/rEDbLuFFNEwS A6