Your voice: Dec. 18, 2024

I am trying to build my software business, so the profit motive, with the associated creativity, initiative and competence, and with the often positive benefits resulting for society, certainly matters to me.

But there are areas where such self-interested capitalism is not appropriate. I believe in least necessary government. Surely this must include firefighting, snow-plowing the county roads, and so forth. More and more I am thinking we need a package of typical, often-needed healthcare and emergency care for everyone. I am on Medicare, and it works great. All we need to do is provide something similar for everyone. If people want to buy more than that through private insurance, great.

To my knowledge, administrators of Medicare earn OK salaries, but do not, as a rule, own 175-foot yachts. I think studies show that if we can remove this excessive greed layer, overall healthcare costs will be a smaller portion of GDP.

With the above in place, what about a family of modest means with a child needing specialized and extremely expensive healthcare? That’s a tough one. It is unfair that only the wealthy should have access to such care. The best I can come up with is something like a lottery, because we cannot afford such expensive state-of-the-art medical care for everyone. Trying to do so threatens to overwhelm us with federal debt, the result being eventual economic catastrophe.

Jerrold Richards

Lyle

Media be damned

Those of us still reeling from the results of Nov. 5 and those of us exulting with election choices need to find a path to unity in order to survive the catastrophe that awaits our combined futures.

We are not addressing the imminent and almost certain environmental collapse that was ignored during the recent campaigns. Nor are we jointly addressing what appears to be our upcoming authoritarian government, filled with sycophants and unqualified cabinet leaders. For the most part, our media bubbles preclude our understanding of each other’s angst. The media I follow paints a very different picture of what Democrats have to offer than the media on the right, which painted a dismal picture of our nation’s economy and our present administration’s values and accomplishments, even though our economy is the envy of the planet and the policies of the Biden administration improved the lives of many, especially in red states, through the Infrastructure and CHIPS bills. I’m guessing we all share the same values, i.e., a more fair economy for all, affordable healthcare and housing, good education, a cleaner and safer planet and hopefully a stronger democracy. We are all being manipulated by an oligarchy that is just about to become even more divisive, destructive and manipulative on Jan. 20, and yet each of our media bubbles pit us against each other so that we can’t come together to fight jointly for our beloved country.

We are good people with good intentions for the most part. We need to realize what is being done to us in an effort to control us and the best way to do this is to respectfully talk to each other. We have an avenue for this called Braver Angels Columbia Gorge Alliance, where people with divergent ideas meet monthly to talk to each other with civility. Let’s all join and start working for a happier and saner future. The media be damned!

Sarah Bellinson

Hood River

Buyers remorse

In response to those who say that fears about the next Trump presidency were overstated, first of all, he isn’t even president yet. But it is important to remember that it was people in his own administration — respected military leaders and previous ardent supporters — who had the strongest fears.

Clearly, many voters chose to disregard this, but I am convinced they will be feeling buyer’s remorse in 2025 once they are reminded of why they voted him out of office four years ago. During his first term, his popularity peaked on inauguration day, and went downhill from there.

But while our country embarks on what I call it’s national experiment in insanity, electing an obvious conman to the White House, I would point out that Oregon did not follow. Democrats increased their seats in both the state House and Senate. And while many Democratic states saw Trump do much better than in 2020, this was not true of Oregon or Washington, where the Democratic margin of victory decreased by less than 1%. And here in The Dalles, Harris won, 51%-49% in the four precincts that make up the city, which corresponds to a margin of 148 votes out of a little more than 7,000 votes cast.

Dean Myerson

The Dalles

'Common sense'

Remember the Chicken Little fable: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” Chicken Little exclaimed when hit on the head by a falling acorn. I am reminded of this little tale every time I read many of the letters to the editor, in this and other newspapers. For me, the letters to the editor have replaced, in many cases, the old comic pages of years ago.

I see things in letter like, “He is always lying,” yet no evidence or any examples are given. Folks, the reality is, all politicians lie at one point or another. You will notice that I didn’t put a name on anyone in the first sentence, referencing to “he is always lying.” Some will think I am referring to the current president while others will think I am referring to the incoming president, or simply any politician. I will leave you to come to your own conclusion.

Here are three things to consider: First, don’t form incorrect conclusions from insufficient data sources. Facebook, TikTok, QQ, Sina Weibo, Reddit, Snapchat, Instagram, WeChat, WhatsApp, YouTube or any of the other social media sources are not reliable places to find factual information. There are many sources where you can learn and determine what is correct. Above all, use your own common sense. I sincerely hope most of us still have common sense. Second, don’t stoke fear in others without factual information and good cause to do so. And finally, don’t take other people’s word for things, especially when those other people are making extraordinary claims (which should, and must, require extraordinary evidence).

Chet Petersen

The Dalles

Promises

The unofficial slogan of the national Republican Party ought to be “Making rich folks richer.” By the end of January, the GOP will control both houses of Congress as well as the executive branch. They’ve made a lot of promises, but based on current and past behavior, there is one commitment they’ll actually honor: Tax cuts that benefit wealthy individuals and corporations.

The last time the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, their biggest “accomplishment” was their tax cut. They’ll do it again, and they’ll try to sell it as a middle class tax cut. Don’t be fooled. Their 2017 tax cut resulted in the richest 0.1% of taxpayers receiving an average tax cut of $250,000, while the bottom 20% of workers received an average cut of $70. Pfizer Corporation earned $27 billion in the four years after the tax cut enactment and paid zero federal income taxes. The tax cuts will worsen our national debt, but don’t worry. Republican lawmakers say they’ll save money by cutting education funding and food stamp allotments (POD Save America, crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-america).

You won’t find this information on FOX news. Its mega-billionaire owner, Rupert Murdoch, doesn’t want you to know.

Rick George

White Salmon