Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/456595
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD 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 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 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 By Jason Stanford Whatwouldhappenifwe ran Texas like a business? A big chunk of our core revenue stream—oil and gas taxes—is suddenly on shaking ground. Do you hand out shareholder dividends (tax cuts), reinvest cash reserves for unmet needs (funding for schools, roads, and water), or hunker down in the face of economic uncer- tainty? Oh, who are we kidding? "Running government like a business" is something pol- iticians tell voters to trick them into letting politicians run government any way they please. And like a politi- cian who knows who butters his bread, one of our newly minted leaders is getting ready to handle the economic threat of the falling price of oil by giving away money. "Let there be no doubt — there will be tax cuts," said Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Oh, there's doubt. In Janu- ary 2009, oil prices fell below $43 a barrel, the biggest drop since 9/11. Out of some combi- nation of a surfeit of caution and a deficit of ability, then- Comptroller Susan Combs pre- dicted that the economy would grow but state revenues would decline, leading to unneces- sary school funding cuts, un- derfunded roads and high- ways, and unaddressed water needs. Then oil prices rose. Then doubled. Then boy howdy, we had another boom on our hands. An energy boom left Texas with $7.5 billion in cash reserves, but then the price of oil fell, as commodity prices do, and now we're back where we started as far as the price of oil is concerned, which con- cerns a lot of folks. But not Glenn Hegar, Texas' new Comptroller. In determin- ing how much the legislature can spend, he predicted mod- erate economic growth and a moderate increase in state spending. With all this moder- ation, he'll probably get prima- ried by a tea party challenger. Hegar also predicted that the price of oil will increase to between $65 and $75 a bar- rel. He could be right. He's only a rice farmer by trade, but that's more expertise than I can claim. Of course, with Iraq increasing production, Goldman Sachs Inc. and So- ciete Generale SA are predict- ing prices to fall. But then Re- publican Party orthodoxy has never been subject to scientific laws such as supply and de- mand. Amid this uncertainty, wouldn't it be smarter to make sure we're not giving away money when we might need it for basic needs that are al- ready underfunded? It's not like Patrick has a specific idea or a credible rationale about how tax cuts could increase economic activity or energy production. Should we cut gas taxes? Severance taxes? Busi- ness taxes? Property taxes? It would be easier to answer that if this was anything more than fulfilling a campaign promise. One voice that isn't sing- ing from the tax-cut hymnal is the new Governor's. In Greg Abbott's inaugural address, the word "tax" appeared once, and it was not followed by the word "cut." Here's the whole paragraph, because I didn't believe it either: "As governor, I will ensure that we build the roads needed to keep Texas growing. That taxes raised for roads will be spent on roads. I will speed up our needed water projects, and I will secure our border," he said. Put another way, Abbott mentioned "state sovereignty" twice, and twice he uttered the canard "secure our bor- der." Not once did he talk about cutting taxes, and it certainly wasn't because he was against jingoistic talking points. What he did with some el- oquence is list the unmet pri- orities of Texas. Credit where credit is due, even if in some cases the state's needs are past due. "Texas truly is the land of opportunity, the place where anyone can achieve any- thing," he said. "But as great as Texas is there's more we must do. More for the fami- lies stuck in traffic. More for parched towns thirsty for wa- ter. More for parents who fear their child is falling be- hind in school. More for em- ployers searching for skilled workers." When Ted Nugent's blood brother doesn't mouth pieties about tax cuts, maybe high taxes are the last thing wrong with Texas' economy. It's time to run Texas like a business by investing in critical needs and hedging against uncertainty. Tax cuts? Get real. JasonStanfordisaregu- lar contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Dem- ocratic consultant and a Tru- man National Security Proj- ect partner. You can email him at stanford@oppresearch.com and follow him on Twitter @ JasStanford. Jason Stanford Why Texas can't promise tax cuts Cartoonist's take The line "I don't like you 'cause you're gonna get me killed," from the 1987 cop buddy movie "Lethal Weapon," sum- marizes what many of us have concluded about the liberal/leftist/pro- gressive ideological movement that is embedded in much of academia, news me- dia, the Democrat party and even some Republican circles. This includes the obsession with "political correctness" in immigration, Islamic terror- ism, crime, gun rights and dis- ease prevention. The Danny Glover cop char- acter, nearing retirement, was pithily expressing his aversion to being teamed with a sui- cidal Mel Gibson cop, obliv- ious to the endless risks he puts himself and his partner in while chasing bad guys. It car- ries over into current crises fac- ing America. Reticence by a leftist Obama and his liberal mouthpieces to factually state that terrorists, inspired by Is- lam and gaining conquered ter- ritory, have as their sole, reli- giously-inspired goal, to kill or subjugate all infidels (hint: America remains "the Great Sa- tan). Such reticence and aver- sion encourages their killing tactics. Wrong-headed and soft- hearted crime fighting and punishment policies, under lib- eral influence, get thousands of citizens killed by thugs who no longer fear punishment, or who know the police are becoming risk-averse to aggressively con- fronting urban violent crime. Progressive-inspired anti-gun ownership policies and legal measures effectively get many people killed who would, left to their own decision-making about self defense, properly and legally own and carry guns. In another example, the mea- sles outbreak making headlines has been traced in recent anal- ysis to come "from overseas," which I translate as having a connection to not just people visiting Disneyland from dis- tant foreign countries, but also young border-crossers from Central America over the last year. I wrote a couple of col- umns last fall on the wide-open health risks of blindly accepting un- screened children and youths walking into America. I cited reputable sources concerned about "the deadly, debilitating Enterovirus, EV-D68" brought here "via the many tens of thou- sands of illegal alien children that, with no small encourage- ment from Obama's agencies and policies, flagrantly flooded our borders." Neil Munro (Dai- lyCaller.com) wrote, "Obama's Border Policy Fueled Epidemic, Evidence Shows" and Scott Johnson (Powerlineblog.com) wrote numerous pieces on "The Case of the Mystery Virus." I wrote that "It is no longer a case of 'coincidence doesn't prove causation' but rather 'rea- sonable suspicion,' close to 'probable cause,' that diseases known and medically identified to exist in Central American countries, accompanied those children to American cities." Virologyj.com posted a paper titled "Human rhinoviruses and Enterovirus in influenza-like ill- ness in Latin America." Inter- nist Dr. Foley wrote, "there is a deafening silence on the part of public health officials and the mainstream media in even speculating about this associa- tion. This is not a simple case of being politically selective about the news, it is downright dan- gerous and could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the emergence of diseases long ab- sent from daily life in Amer- ica…" Get it? A disease "long ab- sent from daily life in America," is the definition of the mea- sles outbreak in the news. Com- pounding the outbreak is the aversion—often in the more liberal, generally affluent ar- eas of America—to having chil- dren receive the immunizations that the medical scientific au- thorities strongly recommend to keep scourges like measles a tragic part of our past. In- fections numbered in the tens, even hundreds, of thousands with deaths in the thousands before inoculations became routine, often in schools with- out the slightest hesitancy on the part of parents. They would have personally seen the devas- tation of childhood contagious diseases under the pre-vaccina- tion regimen. Much lip service is wasted trying to thread the public re- lations needle between the im- portance of getting children vaccinated and the free will of parents to use their own best judgment in making their chil- dren's health decisions. I'm having none of it. As this anti- vaccination belief and mental- ity is reported highest among affluent liberals, you could make a reasonable case that this segment of Americans are the most likely be critical of those on the right for suppos- edly being anti-science. It's a tired and phony trope; such people are hypocrites when faced with genuine scientific certainty over protecting chil- dren's health from contagious diseases. One could argue that such expressions of free will, as the "anti-vax-ers" profess, doesn't endanger vaccinated children when such children are kept out of circulation. However, as the measles outbreak now indis- putably demonstrates, the pro- tections afforded by being sur- rounded by vaccinated chil- dren become meaningless when such non-vaccinated kids circu- late among those from foreign, even underdeveloped, coun- tries—including illegal immi- grants passively carrying viro- logical threats attending, say, Disneyland. So, when prominent, effec- tively anti-science, liberals spread disproved assertions of autism from vaccinations, and anecdotal instances of bad re- actions, they may well be get- ting people killed as assuredly as their liberal policies are com- plicit in criminal violence, Is- lamic terrorism, and deaths preventable by gun ownership. Yes, liberalism does get people killed. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Liberalism gets people killed Amid this uncertainty, wouldn't it be smarter to make sure we're not giving away money when we might need it for basic needs that are already underfunded? Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. As a driver either way works for me but my son attends the school right there and said when it was just the blinking light, cars wouldn't check for pedestrians. He was almost hit twice by drivers only looking for other cars. I'm glad it's going back for that reason alone. On'a Perkins: On recommendation to reprogram a signal at Walnut and Jackson. So glad to hear this. I travel through this intersection daily during heavy usage. The four way flashing red seemed to work much better in my opinion. Most drivers were great about taking turns efficiently. Traffic did not get all backed up. Marlu Stroud: On recommendation to reprogram a signal at Walnut and Jackson. Don Polson AssemblymanJames Gallagher 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95973, 530 895- 4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate. ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown State Capital Building, Sacra- mento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@ governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa, 507 Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer 1700 Montgomery St., San Francisco 94111, 510 286- 8537, fax 202 224-0454 Contact your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, February 3, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6