LETTERS: Friday

Planning needed for stimulus

What captured my attention in the report, “Stimulus not as good as it gets” was the $650,000 given from the stimulus package to the two community child development centers, one of them in Colorado Springs (The Gazette, Nov. 11). The federal government reports that the $650,000 given to these two centers created or saved more than 292 jobs when in fact the money actually was used to create only three jobs and the rest used to give employees cost-of-living raises. It appears the government is giving the taxpaying public false and misrepresenting data on the reason we are sinking hopelessly into trillions of dollars of debt.

The government wonders why tax increases, bailouts and stimulus packages are currently given a wary eye by taxpayers, touting job creation when the money is actually used to give pay raises. This what happens when the government quickly and recklessly passes a bill, albeit with good intentions, without properly mapping out the proper uses of the money.

Good government should lead by example, with proper planning, budgeting and reasonable expenditure. I’m concerned that our government, in its current state, is out of touch with constituents and with reality. It continues to spend, writing blank checks on the account of the American taxpayer.

Duane Johnston

Colorado Springs

Feds stumble on vaccinations

I just confronted the first example of what health care controlled by the government is going to be like. Hearing that H1N1 vaccine is now available in Colorado Springs, I wanted to be sure and get a shot as soon as possible. I am 67 years old and I have emphysema. Thus, I concluded that I would be one of the high-risk persons able to be one of the first to get the vaccine.

I called my doctor’s office to see if I could obtain a shot. I was informed that “the vaccine is being distributed under government control and the government hasn’t told them yet when they would get some vaccine.” It was said that “Walgreen’s and other nationwide organizations had more pull than we do, so they get it from the government first.”

So, I began to call around to Walgreen’s, Safeway and other pharmacies I had heard would have the vaccine. I found that a Walgreen’s store not too far from me would be giving shots that afternoon, “If I qualified.” I said that I was sure that I would qualify since I was 67 and had emphysema and other health conditions. I was told, “No, they (the government) says you have to be under 65 to get the vaccine in this first round.”

If you are old and have health problems, the government doesn’t want to fool with you, I guess. Not that 67 is old by today’s standards, but I guess it is by government standards.

As of yet, government intervention into the health care industry is minimal. Just wait until they have more control — maybe total control. Which government official is going to decide who gets the various kinds of treatment and preventative care and who doesn’t? Which government official is going to decide who lives and who doesn’t? I don’t know about you, but it scares the heck out of me.

Rod Summitt

Colorado Springs

Merit pay best for workers

A letter-writer in the Nov. 9 Gazette stirred me out of my usual sloth by her self-serving complaint about the proposal of the Harrison School District to tie teacher compensation to performance, as measured by the results of students on standardized tests (“Performance pay not right”).

I could have waited until she declared herself a teacher in her second paragraph, but it wasn’t necessary to do so. The question she posed in her first one gave away the fact that she works in a socialist, union dominated mini-economy, and thus has no experience or understanding of how a dynamic free market works.

“What other employee in the world has his salary based on what somebody else does?” Most people, and most of them don’t risk just the loss of a pay increase, but loss of their job or even loss of their business.

The appropriate question might have been “What other employee can count on continued employment, with no requirements for advancement other than longevity and acquisition of additional usually meaningless academic credentials, and at an ever increasing pay scale, with a fat retirement package at the end?”

Will an individual teacher risk being held back because she has been assigned difficult students? Probably not; I saw nothing in the proposal as reported that would tie compensation to the results of one specific measurement tool. But objective measurement there must be, if we are to cease rewarding incompetence and sloth according to the same standards met by the competent and hard-working.

She did get one thing right, though; administration needs to be held to account as well (gee, maybe their salaries could be tied to the performance of teachers!). The only way to see that compensation is fairly distributed is to break the union-educrat stranglehold on public education through choice and competition, as it is in the “real world”.

Kirk Messinger

Colorado Springs

Innovation could save museum

If I were able to suggest alternatives to shuttering the Pioneers Museum, I would follow the lead thousands of historic buildings across the country and start allowing weddings and other private events.

In addition, the museum might create as many private/public partnerships as possible, entering into agreements with caterers, florists, party supply businesses, limousine companies, formal wear providers, wedding planners and photographers to create a “preferred providers” list. If companies agreed to, say 1 percent profit sharing on business done in the museum, they would appear on the list.

The museum might also begin charging a nominal fee for admission. People tend to value things more if they must pay for them, than if the things are free. Almost anyone could afford a dollar or two and there could always be sponsorships, or other means of economic help for those who couldn’t. Even at a dollar apiece, if the museum is getting 75,000 visitors a year, that would be $75,000 into the plus column with little effort.

Ann Ervin Janitell

Colorado Springs

Who’s running city government?

Bravo, Barry Noreen, for your column on our city’s elite (“Police, firefighters shouldn’t be exempt,” The Gazette, Nov. 11). A couple weeks ago in a Gazette story on 2C there was a photo of Jan Martin engaged in a discussion with a senior firefighter. I couldn’t help but wonder if he kissed her ring. After Noreen’s column, I wondered if I got it wrong; maybe she kissed his ring.

Tom Savage

Colorado Springs