Printed letters, April 24, 2012

By Staff
Monday, April 23, 2012

After reading the editorial on recently about the Senate not passing a budget for the third year in a row (1,086 days now), and giving Sen. Conrad credit for trying, I had to pause and laugh to stay sane. The fact that the majority leader Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic senators will not even vote on a budget, because it is an election year, is the definition of insane.

States, businesses, non profits, and households all have to work within a budget. Republicans did pass a budget and our president presented a budget to Congress that was voted on and rejected by both parties. The fact that Paul Ryan’s budget would not have been accepted by Harry Reid or the president is irrelevant, the Senate has a duty to pass their version of a budget, and the two houses then are required to compromise on their differences in conference.

What is even more disturbing, is that the media, the supposed fourth wing of our government, are not shouting from the mountain tops everyday about this, and holding Harry Reid’s feet to the fire. What a joke we have in Washington, and with our supposedly neutral press.

GARY BAILEY

Western Slope Conservative Alliance President

Grand Junction

Health clinic costs School District more

The recent article about the School District 51 health clinic saving money is misleading. The headline reads the clinic is saving District 51 money, yet the District ended up paying over $22,000 in March to the clinic for health services for their employees and dependents. Those services would have cost the district employees over $44,000. So it is the employees who are saving money, not the district.

In fact the District spent over $22,000 more than they would have spent under the previous system. At this rate the district will spend over $260,000 more this year for health care paid to fund operation of this clinic.

With the district laying off teachers and cutting programs, this is an unnecessary expense. The district could have simply changed their benefit plan to allow their employees and dependents to see their usual primary care doctor for the same low cost as the clinic.

This model is disrupting long-standing relationships patients have had with their personal physicians and will ultimately cost School District 51, and ultimately taxpayers, more in the long run.

GREGORY REICKS

Grand Junction

 

Republicans also guilty of unChristian acts

After reading Mike Bambino’s letter in the April 17 edition of The Daily Sentinel, it’s become apparent to me that there is currently a war against Christ that I hadn’t previously been aware of. I’m not going to recite every allegation he lays at the feet of the Democratic party. The main thrust of his attack seems to be how unChristian society has become. All thanks to the Democratic party.

Times do change, and that seems to be a concept many people appear to have trouble accepting. If you went back in time 200 years, you would find a much different soceity then you do today. In fact that society would seem very similar to what we rally against in the Islamic world today. Wife gets out of line? Beat her senseless a few times. She’ll figure it out. Feeling a little tired these days? Go buy another slave to take care of those nuisance problems around the old homestead.

My point is that these were all accepted practices a couple of hundred years ago. More than likely, one of the few things both Republicans and Democrats could agree on today is that these practices were reprehensible. I’d even go as far as to say that we question how any person could ever have defended them. Times change.

As far as Democrats being responsible for all unChristian behavior, all I can say is, good. It’s not their job to be Christian or unChristian. Their job is to pass legislation that benefits all people, not just those who refer to themselves as Christians. I’ll finish by dredging up the big kahuna of idealogical disagreement: health insurance. How Christian is the Republican party being when they work so diligently to deny heath insurance availability to a third of the country?

GREG FOX

Whitewater

 

Christainity does not have a spotless history

In response to Mike Bambino’s letter about Christianity being under attack: I’m a Christian and a Democrat. As a Christian, I don’t feel threatened or under attack.

A few historical facts: Christians enslaved and exploited black people for centuries. Christians killed thousands of Native Americans on both North and South America to steal their lands. Christians of the Bible Belt states of this country lynched 1,971 black men from 1900 to 1950 (Source: Encyclopedia Americana, 1964 edition).

During World War II, the Germans — a Christian people — gassed to death and slaughtered millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children.

ALFRED P. LEFEBRE

Grand Junction