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'Fair Tax' Would Be Sensible Improvement
RE: "NATIONAL Sales Tax Gets Attention" article
While the article reports nothing to establish or recognize credibility of the researchers, developers and promoters who devised the Fair Tax system, it ends with a paragraph or so written in prose and style that would discourage lesser informed taxpayers from further consideration of this transparent and truly fair alternative.
An alternative to the incredible, incomprehensible and unbelievably expensive system with which we are now saddled— a system with which it costs an estimated $300 billion annually to comply.
These billions are paid by you and me. And who among you realize that we also pay a value added tax? The present loophole filled system gives rise to such news as "Tax Cheating Tycoons" appearing in the Reader's Digest and following that our local newspaper carried a U.S. Senate committee report confirming as truthful the Digest report.
The Fair Tax system was thoroughly researched and developed by a non-partisan group including such economists as Dale Jorgenson of Harvard and Larry Kotlikoff of Boston University.
Does anyone know that implementation of an income tax was proviso No. 2 of the Communist Manifesto, ostensibly to facilitate a communist government's control over its subjects.
HARDING C. "GABBY" HAYS
El Paso
City Should Be Bike Friendly
I AM FROM Austria and my wife Alexandra comes from Albuquerque. Therefore I have the pleasure spending my vacation in the "Land of Enchantment."
I agree with Albert Einstein that "life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
I have the pleasure of using a bicycle in order to commute to my workplace in the Principality of Liechtenstein. In year 2007, I rode about 4,940 miles with the bicycle only for commuting. I just say, it's a true win/win situation.
I am fit and healthy and invest about 400 bicycle hours per year to realize this challenge, the maintenance cost for my bicycle is less than $100 dollars per year and the environment is also happy. Last but not least I do not need a gas station.
I have used a couple of my vacation days to explore the bicycle net in Albuquerque and its surroundings. Much to my surprise, I have found that not many people use their own muscle power, although there are excellent bicycle trails and a breathtaking nature.
It's a big surprise for me that the city of Albuquerque does not have the bike budget to make a new bicycle crossing over the Rio Grande. Frankly speaking, it's a shame.
Wherever, whenever I am on the road again with my bicycle, I keep smiling to the car drivers.
CHRISTOPH RINDERER
Goetzis, Austria
Build Paths With Roads
WHILE THERE may be better bicycle transportation projects than the planned river bridge, it is my understanding that major transportation projects like the I-40 Rio Grande bridge rebuild and the I-40 and Eubank interchange rebuild are legally required to provide for safe bicycle traffic.
The Rio Grande bridge omitted this requirement and the Eubank interchange nearly did until local transportation activists pointed out yet another failure to follow the requirements of New Mexico law.
It's easy enough to complain about the cost of each individual bike path project, but when each project is tabled, omitted or forgotten, we end up with zero improvements to the two-wheel transportation system in this city and a continued poverty of alternatives to using automobiles for some of our transportation needs.
Until there is a real effort to create a real system of transportation alternatives there just won't be any viable alternatives available. If it is the river bridge or nothing, build the bridge. At least that way the I-40 Rio Grande bridge omission will be corrected.
MARK WALKER
Albuquerque
Baby-Sitting Coddled Students Not Teachers' Jobs
THIS YEAR I heard from colleagues in higher education that parents are now showing up on university campuses to complain about professors overworking and over challenging their students. I shrugged it off as isolated; there are crazies everywhere.
But when I recently heard from a number of public school employee friends at various locations in and around Albuquerque that high school girls are wearing pajamas and slippers, and carrying blankies and stuffed animals to school, the suppressed alarm bells in my view of the education world went off in earnest.
Remember when education worked? As I recall, back then parents reinforced the civic, social and academic lessons professional educators taught at school. By contrast, today's parents have direct input into education policies and processes and that is and has been an absolute disaster.
Parents even get to sit on committees that select school administrators, setting up the next principal to be beholding before ever showing up to work. Helicopter parents and single-minded advocates have made a mockery of public education. The over identification of special education students both as "gifted" and "emotionally disabled" has been a direct result of caving in to parental demands and lawsuit wielding opportunists.
It's time to legislate control back to the professionals. When the rules become a collection of every possible exception, they cease to be rules. Reasonable parents and serious students deserve more. So do the educators who have been relegated to the position of unglorified baby sitter.
DAVID A. LEPRE
Albuquerque
$6 Million Price Seems High
I'VE READ the various articles pro and con about a bicycle bridge across the Rio Grande but have yet to see any challenge to the argument that the bridge would cost $6 million. Where does that figure come from?
Is there one bicycle bridge builder in the city, state or Southwest and is that the catalogue list price for a bridge of such-and-such length? Have competitive bids been received with the lowest bid at $6 million or could there perhaps be a builder who could do it for $1 million? It does seem like a lot of money to me for such a bridge and therefore I question whether the figure is reasonable.
JAMES STEEVES
Albuquerque
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