Budget cuts shouldn’t hit kids’ favorites

Many parents and students are angered by potential state budget cuts, so the topic has become a leading issue in Nevada. One of the ways that the school district has decided to save money is by firing teachers who aren’t involved in the core classes. With $120 million needing to be cut from the budget, Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes also said things such as transportation, nursing, arts, music and sports might be on the line.

This means taking out what students find most enjoyable in school and disposing of the programs that let pupils express themselves in a place where most things are uniform.

As much as the budget cuts are affecting the students who attend district schools, the budgeting is also affecting members of the administration who work to keep our schools going. All state employees were forced to take one unpaid day off per month, and employees such as maintenance workers took a leave of absence. Budget cuts lead to the termination of teachers, which make class sizes bigger, which increases a teacher’s work load.

With all these budget cuts going on, what should we expect to get the boot next? Students participate in extracurricular activities and electives to achieve happiness, and are we not granted the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right?

Changes must be made if school budgeting continues to mean the end of beneficial classes for Nevada’s students.

Morgan Martin

Las Vegas

Tax policy

To the editor:

John Brummett’s attempt (Sunday column) to school his buddies on the left about “persuasion rather than punishment” as a strategy for making rich people realize that paying higher taxes is simply a matter of common sense, once again — for the umpteenth time — exposes the left’s complete block when it comes to even considering that spending could possibly be a problem. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear some persuasion about that?

Mr. Brummett says, “Look, we need all this money and these rich guys over here have a lot of it. Let’s take it from them because they don’t need it. It’s a matter of common sense.”

Well, it doesn’t take a lot of deep contemplation to realize what’s wrong with this premise. Yet, that was the basic premise of Mr. Brummett’s enlightened lesson to the left this past Sunday.

Let’s adjust his lesson a bit. First, Mr. Brummett needs to begin with, “Why do we need all this money?” Once that’s responsibly determined, he then needs to proceed to, “Do we have solid and efficient controls in place, before we start spending it?” From there, he can then wander into the debate about where we should get the money.

Also, just a suggestion here, Mr. Brummett, but when you get to the part about where we should get the money, everyone in America should have some stake in this debate. As it stands now, almost half of the country couldn’t care any less because it doesn’t affect them.

Paul Parrish

Henderson

Redistribute wealth

To the editor:

In the context of the current debate over tax breaks for the nation’s wealthiest, two articles in different sections of Friday’s newspaper jumped out at me.

One article, “Stocks helping wealth recover,” noted that household wealth has improved significantly since the end of the recession in 2009. Remarkably, average household wealth is close to a half-million dollars. That article appeared on the front page of the Business section.

Another article, on Page 12A, “More than half of Americans say things are worse now than in ’08,” tells the opposite story: People are worse off than they were. They have not seen benefits from the recovery.

On top of this is the news recently that unemployment rose.

What the second article tells us is that measures of wealth don’t mean a lot to most people. The reason is that wealth is so narrowly concentrated in America. In fact, inequality of wealth is worse now than at any time since the 1920s.

So sure, wealth may be increasing overall. But it really just means that it’s increasing for the wealthy, while the rest of us are as bad off as before (or worse). Republican arguments that this inequality ultimately benefits everyone ring hollow when we see both increasing wealth and increasing unemployment.

Experience in the 1980s taught us that trickle-down theories don’t work. What works is addressing inequality. Cutting taxes for the wealthy doesn’t.

Mark Kaswan

Henderson

Just a dream

To the editor:

Sen. Harry Reid’s Dream Act proposal brought to mind a difficult situation faced by one of my former students.

Cesar was a brilliant honors student, well-liked and respected by his peers. When I asked him about his future college plans, he teared up and confided to me that he recently learned from his parents that he was brought to the United States as a 2-year-old illegally. Until then, he believed he was a citizen of the United States.

Knowing that he could not be granted financial aid to attend college and because of his parents’ fear of deportation, Cesar joined the U.S. Army upon high school graduation. There he served two tours of duty in Iraq and also took a number of college courses. He was discharged with honor.

I would like to ask letter writer Gerald Duncan (Friday) and other like-minded citizens what do they propose should now be Cesar’s fate? Should he be deported to the Dominican Republic, where he has no contacts and barely speaks the language? Should we allow him to remain in America, the country he fought for, but limit his employment opportunities to minimum-wage jobs?

Has he not earned the right to citizenship? Just asking.

Howard Ginsburg

Las Vegas