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6A Daily News– Wednesday, August 15, 2012 Opinion DAILYNEWS 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 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. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. 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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 In a recent letter to the editor, I referred to Mitt Romney as a "multimillionaire vulture capital- ist" and as an "empty suit." I chose those words carefully. Romney's wealth is not the issue. Many presidents have had great wealth. The difference between those presidents and Romney is that, even with their wealth, they understood the needs of the poor and middle-class vot- ers. They advocated for laws, like Social Security, Medicare and Civil Rights, to assist all Ameri- can's, not just the rich and power- ful. On Romney Editor: their goal is adding wealth for investors, not adding jobs. The "empty suit" is a descrip- tion of a politician whose only principle is getting elected. Rom- ney accurately fits that description. Now, Romney has chosen a VP candidate who does have princi- ples. Unfortunately, those princi- ples include destroying Social Security, Medicare and women's rights. Robert Wilkinson, Red Bluff Certainly, President Obama is not poor either, but like many past wealthy presidents, he has consis- tently advocated for real voters with real needs. As a community organizer in Chicago, he actually worked to help ordinary citizens. Romney's experience with Bain Capital was as a "vulture capitalist," not as a "venture capi- talist." Venture capitalists' invest in new ventures, helping them to grow into mature businesses. Vul- ture capitalist's invest in failing businesses, hoping to turn them around into profitable ones. The methods for success are quite dif- ferent. As new ventures grow, they add jobs and increase revenue, thereby improving economic growth for the country as a whole. Vulture capitalists' acquired busi- nesses are turned around by cut- ting expenses and jobs, or out- sourcing jobs to other countries. They may add jobs eventually, but The ongoing debate over our corporate profit driven health care system, which reportedly gener- ates an estimated $360 billion in annual profit, has been instrumen- tal in spawning a wave of distor- tions, misinformation and outright lies, the following statistics might help to challenge, if not refute. Empty slogans, such as "Best health care system in the world," are frequently bandied about and seem to dominate the discourse, yet remain totally unproven and uncontested. Of course, it might apply to those among us fortunate enough to have it provided by an altruistic employer, or well heeled individuals able to afford it, yet the vast majority among us is laboring under the weight of issues pertain- ing to pre-existing conditions, treatment denied, rationing exces- sive co-pay demands, cancella- tions, discontinuation of coverage, premium increases, inflated prices of pharmaceuticals etc...at a cost of more than $8.000 per capita, by far the highest in the world, with very little to show for. Wages continue to tumble, and US healthcare Editor: now the leading cause of death in the U.S. which includes hospital acquired infections, medical and drug errors, misdiagnoses, post- operative infections, fatal drug reactions, unnecessary surgeries and many more, which accounts for 788.000 deaths annually, and actually exceeds those of heart dis- ease (616,000) and cancer (562,000) which renders us 30th overall in life expectancy. The fact that close to 50 million of our citizens lack health insur- ance, which causes an additional 50.000 deaths a year, should be added to the litany. 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies are now health care related, an issue totally alien to other civilized countries around the world. Maybe the following informa- tion, recently compiled by Grae- don People's Pharmacy, will serve as further enlightenment: Medical mistakes are I give you a better reason why: $360 billion. Joe Bahlke, Red Bluff Your Turn There is little doubt, the tril- lion dollar yearly spending deficit by Obama and his supporters, is prob- ably the worst taxpay- ers have experienced in their lives. The recession under Presi- dent Carter was the Debt Editor: Contrast that with our partners and allies, Britain and Germany, whose system of universal health care does not exclude anyone, yet the above described mistakes in Britain number 11,000, and Ger- many 17,000 per annum, adjusted for population disparity, would interpret to 55,000 or 68,000 respectively, moreover, their administrative cost is a mere 1/6 of ours. evil of socialized medicine, which we are taught, any freedom-lov- ing, red-blooded American has the duty to reject out of hand, because it represents a dangerous slippery slope to communism. Of course, they subscribe to the previous worse with 16 percent mortgage interest, fifteen percent home sale loss and 26 months to sell the home, 20 percent unem- ployment in our Illinois manu- facturing city of Rockford, and 15 percent inflation. That reces- sion only lasted three years. Obama's recession that start- ed in 2008 and continues is worse because of the growing 8 percent US unemployment rate, the 75 percent decline in income for retirees who invested savings for many decades, and the one- third value decline in home value. There is no end in sight from the results of Obama's trillion dollar yearly deficits. Most of his programs have had no value such as the $35 billion spending for alternative energy companies, many who have gone bankrupt, the $4,500 clunker vehicle pro- gram, the bailout of the UAW union at the expense of GM and Chrysler bondholders, the $7,500 gift to first time home- buyers and the list of fraud and corruption programs goes on. Joseph Neff, Corning 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), 2595 Cean- othus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 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; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454. In Europe, prosperity on vacation Commentary sure know how to vacation. If they get sick while taking their employer-paid vacation, their employer now has to pay them to take another. According to The New York Boy, our friends in Europe ance even if they're fired with cause." Times, all 27 countries within the European Union, and all employers within them, must abide by that recent vacation ruling by the EU's highest court. My hat goes off to my vaca- tioning pals overseas. Take the French. Their gov- ernment mandates that every employee get at least five weeks of paid vacation. The French average 37 days of vacation every year — and 22 paid holi- days on top of that. Virtually all European coun- tries have government mandates that require employer-paid vacation of four to six weeks — whereas America has no gov- ernment-mandated vacation requirements. European employees enjoy all kinds of additional work- place perks and benefits, too. Canadian weekly Maclean's reports that: extra two weeks off for honey- moons, and 20 days of sever- • "Spanish workers get an ple off during an economic downturn can face years of cost- ly legal proceedings. ... Rome is proposing a law requiring employers to pay laid-off work- ers a whopping 27 months in wages." Vacations are way different in America. CNN says the aver- age employed American worker got about 18 vacation days in 2011, but only used 14 of them. And unlike our European counterparts, we never really "leave" work. Fearing for our jobs, with the economy still in the tank, we stay in touch with the office. give extra paid leave to staff who work 39 hours per week instead of the statutory 35, even if the workers are paid for the overtime." • "In Italy, firms that lay peo- • "In France, companies must According to Rasmussen Reports, 72 percent of Ameri- cans use email, smartphones and other electronic devices to keep themselves accessible to their employers 24 hours a day. It's even worse for America's small-business owners. Accord- ing to Business News Daily, fewer than half take a week off during the summer. With the economy so uncertain and revenues down, many are afraid or unable to hire. They are picking up the slack by working two or three jobs them- selves. are workers, I sup- pose. We're so differ- ent from our European friends. But we Americans In tough times, we are happier working hard and keeping rev- enues coming in, rather than spending lots of dough at hoity-toity resorts. We don't like our government telling us or our employers how we ought to conduct business or how many vacation days employers must provide. Heck, if our Supreme Court ruled that employers must not only provide paid vacations but pay for them all over again if an employee gets sick while vaca- tioning, many Americans would take to the streets in protest. Americans protest loss of their freedoms. Europeans tend Tom to protest meddling with their government-mandated benefits. At least that used to be a distinction between America and Europe. Purcell It will be a sad day when that happens. We'll have an even more anemic econo- my, just as most EU nations do now, and all of us will struggle to pursue happiness and wealth. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Visit Tom on the Web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at Purcell@caglecartoons.com. employers will have to pay us for another week off if we get sick while we're on vacation. ——— Oh, well, at least our Our government has been so busy handing out goodies to citizens, it's just a mat- ter of time before the freedom lovers are overrun by the benefit lovers.