Letters

Can all pay it forward

I so enjoyed the letter from the gentleman in Fayetteville on Tuesday.

I too am on the sunny side of 75 and have experienced the things he writes of. It is so refreshing to see positive letters in the paper. We can all pay it forward.

So many people today have negative views on almost everything. I still maintain the United States, in spite of our problems and differences, is by far the best place in the world to be. I am thankful to be an American.

SHARON DUNTON

Horseshoe Bend

Solution to aid planet

Matthew Thompson wrote a timely and well-written letter that was published in the Democrat-Gazette on April 9, "Act on climate change." What was missing was a rational way to control the cause of this most serious threat.

The transition to clean energy is of course what is considered an obvious solution, but it alone will take too long to be able to reverse the deterioration of the atmosphere in time to prevent the melting of the polar ice, acidification of the oceans, rising sea levels and flooding of our coastal cities.

So, what's the answer? In 2013, Citizens Climate Education Corp. commissioned Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) to study the effect of a revenue-neutral carbon price on the American economy. Chosen for its track record of providing analysis to both governmental bodies and the fossil fuel corporations, REMI's analysis concluded that such a system would have strong positive economic effects on the nation's health and prosperity alike. This study was reaffirmed in 2017 by the Center for Climate Strategies.

REMI's analysis concluded that, during the first 20 years alone, a Carbon Fee and Dividend policy would lead to a 50 percent reduction of carbon emissions below 1990 levels; the addition of 2.8 million jobs above baseline, driven by the steady economic stimulus of the energy dividend; and the avoidance of 230,000 premature deaths due to reduction in air pollutants that often accompany carbon emissions.

CHARLES SISCO

Fayetteville

The sixth, or second?

The sixth of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill." Subsequent to that, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted. The gun lobby seems to feel that the Second Amendment therefore takes priority over the Sixth Commandment.

Perhaps they would like the monument being put back on the grounds of the state Capitol to be altered so it reads "Nine Commandments and a Second Amendment."

DONALD K. CAMPBELL II

Little Rock

Corporal punishment

Stormy Daniels said on 60 Minutes that President Trump lowered his pants a little and she spanked him with a magazine.

I would have paid a dear price to have been the one that he asked to perform that task. I can guarantee you one thing: He would have never asked anyone to whip him again.

GARY USELTON

Benton

Converts good to bad

Brenda Looper, in her April 11 column titled "Matter of facts," caused me to determine the reason my most recent submission to Voices had been deemed unworthy of publication: I had been guilty of factual error.

My hastily written and poorly composed letter was intended to contradict attorney Ruud DuVall's implication (in his most recently published Voices letter) that "supply-side" economic policy (Mr. DuVall calls it "trickle-down economics") enacted during the Reagan administration had caused the large increases in national debt characteristic of those years.

A basic principle of supply-side economic theory is that decreasing federal income-tax rates will produce increased federal revenue, because money left in the private sector will tend to result in economic growth (greater investment in entrepreneurial innovation and product development), whereas money taxed away from the private sector for use in the public sector will, at best, result in wealth transfers, not economic growth. Growth in the private sector results in increased incomes subject to taxation, thus increased federal revenue.

Federal revenue totaled $517.1 billion in fiscal year 1980, the year prior to the start of the Reagan administration; during fiscal year 1988, the last year of that administration, federal revenue totaled $909.2 billion, having increased dramatically in spite of income-tax rate decreases. Greatly increased revenue should have resulted in a decrease in the national debt, but federal expenditures increased from $590.9 billion in 1980 to $1,064.4 billion in 1988, a rate of growth in outlays even more dramatic than that of revenue.

Our nation resembled a family whose breadwinner receives enviable pay increases, but then acquires new credit cards and creates exorbitant family debt, converting good into bad.

KEN MILLER

Little Rock

Prevention is answer

Regarding the dead migrating birds in downtown Little Rock (April 10 article), I object to the phrase "there isn't much the city can do."

Prevention is the answer, by the city and by individuals. Future downtown buildings should be required to have the new non-glare glass which was developed for this reason. Existing glass can be made less dangerous to birds by adhering removable/reusable decals on the outside of the glass, and the same goes for homes. The most crucial times for this protection are during spring and fall migrations.

In addition to enhancing our lives with their beauty and song, birds eat harmful insects and have other valuable purposes in nature. All living things -- including humans -- need a healthy ecosystem to survive. We need to let nature do its wonderful work for us, as opposed to poisoning the environment, destroying wildlife habitat, and driving non-human species to extinction.

KATHY WINKLER

Lakeview

Editorial on 04/20/2018

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